Book 6

Men need a word to urge and persuade them to be brave, and to drive out cowardice and instil confidence—athletes for the running-track, soldiers for the fight with arms; but animals need no encouragement from outside. They sharpen their own courage for themselves, and rouse and stir themselves up. The boar, when about to go into battle, whets its tusks against the smooth rocks. And to this Homer too plainly bears witness about the creature. And indeed the lion stirs itself up by lashing itself with its tail, and does not allow itself to grow slack or to rest. This too the poet knew, and sings of it concerning the lion. And the elephants strike themselves with their trunks, kindling themselves to the contest when the time for it comes, and they need no one to sing to them and say, "This is no work for sitting or delay," nor do they wait for the verses of Tyrtaeus. And the bull that leads the herd, when conquered by another leader, withdraws himself to another place, and becomes his own trainer, and practices every exercise, rolling in the dust and rubbing his horns against the trees, and in every other way disciplining himself to the training of his strength; and indeed he abstains from love and is temperate, like Iccus of Tarentum, whom Plato the son of Ariston celebrates as having remained, throughout the whole time of his training, ignorant and untried of any intercourse at all. Now for Iccus, being a man and longing for the Olympic and Pythian crowns, conscious of fame and greedy for glory, it was nothing great to sleep with restraint and temperance; for the prizes were both in fact and in reputation glorious—the Olympic wild olive and the Isthmian pine and the Pythian laurel, and to be looked upon while alive and well spoken of when dead. And indeed I hear that the lyre-player Amoebeus, having married a most beautiful wife, abstained from her throughout the whole time during which he went to the theatres to compete. And Diogenes the tragic actor renounced the licentious bed altogether and entirely. And Clitomachus the pancratiast, if ever he saw dogs coupling, turned away, and if at a banquet he heard any licentious and amorous talk, he rose and departed. That men should do these things, either for the sake of gaining money or for the sake of sharing in fame and glory, is no great wonder; but for a bull that conquers a rival bull, what proclamations, O son of Ariston, do they make, and what prizes do they set apart?

The irrational animals love often to spare and refrain even from those that have become familiar to them. I hear, at any rate, this tale. A hunter had tamed a leopard from infancy and kept it, loving and cherishing it strongly, as one would a friend or a beloved. So he used to bring it a live kid and give it to it, devising at once both food and a kind of pleasure for the beast in tearing the kid apart, that it might not seem to eat carrion and a dead thing. And when a kid was brought, the leopard held itself in check, choosing to go without food because of fullness. And it did this on the second day too; for it still needed hunger as a remedy. But when the third day came on, it was hungry, and showed this as usual by its voice; yet it did not touch the kid that had been its friend for two days, but let it go and took another. But men have betrayed even their brothers and their parents and old friends, and many men often.

That the bear brings forth a shapeless lump of flesh and then articulates it with its tongue and as it were moulds it, has been said above. But what I have not yet said shall be said now, and in a very fitting place. It gives birth in winter, and having given birth keeps to its den, and fearing the frosts awaits the coming of spring, nor would it ever bring out its young before three months are fulfilled. And when it perceives itself to be pregnant, regarding this as a sickness, it seeks a den. Hence indeed the affliction has been called "denning" for the bear. Then it enters not walking but on its back, hiding its tracks from the hunters; for it drags itself along on its back. And having got inside it rests, and in a way wears down its condition, and does this for forty days. And Aristotle says that for twice seven days it remains motionless and still, but for the rest of the time only turns over. So for all forty days it remains without food and without nourishment, and it is enough for it to lick its right paw. And from the excessive wasting its intestine has folded together and closed up. Knowing this, when it comes out it eats what is called wild arum; and this, being flatulent, opens up its intestine for it and widens it, and renders it capable of receiving food. And when it is full again, it eats ants, and is emptied most easily. So have I described the natural emptyings and the timely fillings of bears, which need, O men, neither physicians nor mixtures.

When snakes are about to taste autumn fruit, they suck up the juice of what is called the sow-thistle; and this benefits them against being filled with any wind. And when they are about to lie in wait for someone, whether man or beast, they eat the death-bearing roots and the herbs of that kind. Nor was even Homer ignorant of their food. He says, at any rate, how a snake awaits a man, coiling about its den, having first filled itself with much venomous and evil food.

When deer have shed their horns, they enter and withdraw into the thickets, guarding against those that attack them, and with reason; for being bereft of their weapons they believe that they have been deprived of their strength for the time. They are said also to take care lest, while their antlers are new, the sunbeam falling upon them before they have set and gained what are called the knobs should rot the flesh.

Horses that go into war are suspicious both of leaping over trenches and of vaulting a pit and crossing palisades and stakes and such things. And one may hear Homer too speaking about such matters: how "Hector, going through the throng, besought his comrades, urging them to cross the trench. But his swift-footed horses dared it not, but loudly neighed, standing on the very brink; for the wide trench frightened them, neither easy to leap over near at hand nor to cross."

In Egypt, by the lake called the lake of Moeris, where Crocodilopolis stands, the tomb of a crow is shown, and the Egyptians tell this reason. The king of the Egyptians (this one was called Mares) had a crow as a pet, very tame, and whatever letters he wished conveyed somewhere quickly, this bird carried, and it was the swiftest of messengers, and on hearing it knew where it must direct its flight, and what place it must pass by, and where, on arriving, it must rest. In return for which, when it died, Mares honoured it with a monument and a tomb.

Each kind of animal possesses also a peculiar name for the care taken in rearing it. There is, at any rate, what one might call colt-breaking, and puppy-rearing, and elephant-tending, and lion-rearing, and bird-rearing, and the like.

These too were wise acts of the bear. If it is pursued together with its cubs, it pushes them on as far as it can; but when it perceives that one has given out, it carries one on its back and one in its mouth, and laying hold of a tree leaps up; and the one clings to its back with its claws, while the other is carried in its teeth as it runs

up. And when it meets a bull while hungry, it does not fight by main force and in a straight line, but it wrestles, and seizing the neck-tendon it bends it down and tightens its grip. And the bull is pressed and bellows, and at last gives out and lies down, and the bear fills itself. We have recognized that animals are good at learning in this respect too. In the time of the Ptolemies the Egyptians taught the dog-faced baboons letters and dancing and flute-playing and harp-playing. And a baboon would exact payment for these things, and putting what was given into a little pouch hung from it would carry it, like those clever at gathering alms. And that the Sybarites taught horses even to dance, has long been proclaimed. And the docility of elephants to learning and their readiness I have spoken of above. And dogs, too, are capable of serving in the house those who have trained them, and it is enough for a poor man to have a dog as a slave. There were, however, even of such men, some without slaves, like the Troglodytes among the Arabians, and the Nomads among the Libyans, and that part of the Ethiopians who live by the lakes, who have learned to eat nothing at all beyond their food from fish. And the animal remembers what it suffers, and needs for its memory no art—not Simonides, not Hippias, not Theodectes, nor any other of those proclaimed for this profession and this skill. Where the cow has been robbed of its calf, at any rate, coming there it laments its affliction with familiar lowing. And oxen about to go under the yoke, some smile, others retreat step by step. And a horse, when it hears the rattle of bits and the clink of the bridle, and beholds the breast-pieces and frontlets, snorts thereat, and prancing strikes its hooves and is filled with rapture; the shout of the grooms rouses it, and it pricks up its ears and dilates its nostrils, by the memory of the course and by the irresistible spell of habit.

The deer gives birth beside the roads, and seems to do this from wisdom; for it fears the wild beasts and their plots, but takes courage at men. And it believes itself weaker than the beasts, but does not doubt that it can escape men. But when grown fat it would no longer give birth beside the roads; for it knows that it is more sluggish at running. So it gives birth in the glens and the woods and the valleys.

The land-tortoise, having chewed marjoram, makes nothing of the viper. And if it lacks the marjoram, having eaten rue it is armed against its enemy. But if it fails of either, it is destroyed.

The deer, as I hear, is content with what it has, and does not desire more, but is more temperate as to the belly than men. About the Hellespont, at any rate, there is a hill, and deer pasture upon it, and one of their ears is slit, and they do not pass beyond the hill, nor do they desire strange pasture, nor long for other meadows out of need for more abundant grass; but what they have suffices them the whole year through. What, O men, do you say to this—you whom not all that "the stone threshold of the Archer encloses within" could ever fill up until death?

The hyena, as Aristotle says, has in its left hand a sleep-producing power, and by merely touching it induces torpor. At any rate it often comes into the steadings, and when it meets someone sleeping, approaching it lays its, so to speak, sleep-producing hand upon the nose, and the man is choked and oppressed. And it digs out the earth beneath his head so far that it bends him back into the hole and makes his throat lie bare and exposed; and then the hyena fastens on and throttles him and carries him off to its den. And it attacks dogs in that manner too. When

the circle of the moon is full, it takes the light behind it, and casts its own shadow upon the dogs, and at once silences them, and having bewitched them like the sorceresses it then leads them off in silence, and uses them thereafter for whatever it wishes. The love of a dolphin at Iasus for a beautiful boy, long since sung of, I do not think right to leave without mention from me, and for that reason it shall be told. The gymnasium of the Iasians lies by the sea, and the youths, after their runs and the wrestling-grounds, going down there, wash themselves according to an ancient custom. So as they were swimming, a dolphin fell into a most ardent love with one of them, the most outstanding in beauty. And at first, coming near, it frightened and astonished him, but then by familiarity it drew from the boy a strong friendship and goodwill toward itself. At any rate they began to play with each other, and now they would contest, swimming alongside and racing, now the boy mounting like a rider on a colt would be carried proudly, the lover swimming beneath. And to the Iasians and the strangers what happened was a thing to envy. For the dolphin carried its beloved far out to sea, as far as the boy could be borne in comfort; then it turned back and brought him near the shore, and parting from each other, the one went off to the deep, the other returned home. And the dolphin came to meet him at the time the gymnasium was dismissed, and the boy delighted in the expectation of his friend and in the play with him, and besides his natural beauty he was admired, since he seemed most lovely not only to men but also to the irrational creatures. Yet not long after, this counter-love too was overcome by envy. For it happened that the boy, having exercised more than usual, and being tired, threw himself upon the one that carried him, belly-down, and it chanced that the creature's spine along its back was upright, and it pricked the lovely boy's navel. Then some veins burst beneath, and there followed much flowing of blood, and there the boy died. Now the dolphin, perceiving this from the weight (for he lay upon it not light as usual, since he no longer lightened himself by his breathing), and seeing the sea purple with blood, understood what had been done, and did not dare to outlive its beloved. Using great force, then, like a surging skiff, it cast itself willingly upon the shores, and brought out the corpse along with it, and both lay there, the one dead, the other breathing its last. But Laius, for Chrysippus, O noble Euripides, did not do this, although he was the very first of the Greeks to begin the love of males, as you yourself say and as report teaches. And the Iasians, requiting that strong friendship of theirs, made a common tomb for the lovely youth and the loving dolphin, and set up a monument over it. There was a beautiful boy riding upon a dolphin. And they struck coins of silver and bronze, and stamped on them the figure of the fate of both, and handed it down to memory, honouring the work of so great a god, the people there. And I learn that in the city of Alexander, in the time of the second Ptolemy, a dolphin loved with a love much the same, and at Dicaearchia in Italy. And if Herodotus had known these things, he would, I think, have marvelled less at the tale of Arion of Methymna.

When a famine is about to visit, dogs and oxen and pigs and goats and snakes and other animals perceive it, and when a plague is to come they understand it first of all, and earthquake too. And they foreknow also the healthiness of the air and the abundance of crops. And though they have not received the reason that has power both to save and to destroy, yet of the aforesaid things they are not deceived.

In the land of the so-called Jews or Idumaeans the natives sang, in the time of King Herod, that a snake of the very greatest size fell in love with a beautiful girl, and visiting her would sleep with the aforesaid girl most amorously. So the girl did not take courage at her lover, though it crept up as gently and tamely as possible. She withdrew, then, and stayed away a month, expecting, of course, that the snake would forget her during the absence of his beloved. But for him the solitude intensified his passion, and he came daily and by night; yet not meeting her as he wished, like a lover unfortunate in his longing, he too grieved. But when the woman returned again, the snake came, and embracing her with the rest of its body, with its tail struck the legs of his beloved sparingly, as one slighted and indeed angry. So He who rules over Zeus himself and the other gods does not overlook even the irrational creatures, but shows by these and by others how he is disposed toward them.

Snakes, conscious that they have a thin and long gullet, yet being gluttonous and most omnivorous, as Aristotle says, rise upright and stand on the tip of their tail, and the food slips down for them and passes into the bulk of the body; and being footless they then creep most swiftly. There is one that even shoots itself like a javelin and rushes on, and it has its name from what it does; for it is called the dart-snake.

Of the birds that excel in song and music not one has escaped notice, but we know swallows and blackbirds and the race of cicadas, and the chattering jay and the buzzing locust and the murmuring grasshopper, and the

cricket that does not keep silent, and besides these the halcyons and the parrots; and of the water-creatures the green tree-frog does not keep silent. And of these some utter mournful and womanish cries, others shrill and piercing; and some, running from branch to branch, sing, as though changing house to house, while others sing in the meadows, as if keeping festival, and living, as one might say, a flowery and delicate life, they hymn, I would say, the coming of spring with their melodies. About swans, and whose servants among the gods they are, I have spoken above. The jay, then, is most imitative of other sounds too, and of the human voice most of all. But the bird called the anthus and the trumpet-bird and the wryneck and the raven are peculiar in such imitations. And the anthus imitates the neighing of a horse, the trumpet-bird the trumpet that shares its name, and the wryneck the slanting flute; and the raven likes to imitate the dropping of rain. Of scorpions the male is most harsh, but the female seems gentler. And I hear that there is a white one, and again a tawny one, and another smoky, and a black one besides; and I have learned of a green and a pot-bellied one, and another crab-like; but the most harsh they sing of as flame-coloured. And I have received by report that there are winged ones too, and some with double stings; and somewhere one was seen with seven joints. The scorpion brings forth not eggs but living young. And it must be known that some say the offspring of these creatures comes not from intercourse with one another, but that scorpions breed amid excessive heat. And what each of them does by smearing its sting, and in what way it kills, you will learn elsewhere.

Among the Indians, as I hear, the elephant and the snake are bitterest enemies. So the elephants, tearing off the branches of the trees, feed on them. And the snakes, knowing this, creep up onto them, and wind the lower half of their bodies, the tail part, around the foliage of the trees, while the half that goes toward the head they let down, hanging like a rope. And when the elephant comes to pluck the boughs, the snake leaps at its eyes and gouges them out, then creeping around its neck, drawing with its tail part and tightening with the other, throttles the beast with an unaccustomed and strange noose.

Bitterest foes to the lion are fire and the cock, the hyena to the leopard, and the gecko to the scorpion; at any rate, numbness seizes the scorpion when the aforesaid creature is brought near it. The elephant dreads the snake; every beast of burden fears the shrew-mouse; the lobster the octopus. And indeed dogs, when pushed off the roofs, you could not throw down; for they dread the greatness of the danger.

What devices, then, nature seems to have given to scorpions too, peculiar to them. The Libyans, suspecting their numbers and their contrivances, devise countless devices against them: wearing hollow boots, and sleeping high up and aloft, and pulling the bed-cords away from the walls, and setting the feet of their beds in jars full of water, and they think they shall thereafter sleep in much safety and peace. But see what the scorpions contrive. If a scorpion can find anywhere to hang itself from the ceiling, it clings there with its claws most firmly and lets down its sting. So the second comes down from the roof, and creeps down by way of the first, and clings to that one's sting with its own claws, and leaves its own sting hanging; and the third clings from there, and the fourth from the third, and the fifth in a row, and those after them creeping down by way of the first. Then the last one strikes the sleeper and creeps up by way of those above, and the one after it, and the third from below, and the rest, until they have all loosed themselves from one another as though undoing a chain.

The fox is a crafty thing. At any rate it plots against the land-hedgehogs in this way. It cannot overcome them while they are upright. The reason is that the spines fend it off. But quietly and sparingly using its mouth it turns them over and lays them on their backs, and ripping them open eats easily those that were until then formidable. And the bustards in Pontus they hunt thus. Turning themselves about and ducking their heads to the ground, the foxes raise their tails like a bird's neck; and the bustards, deceived, approach as toward a bird of their own kind, and then, coming near, are caught most easily by the fox, which turns about and attacks by main force. And the little fish it hunts most cleverly. It comes along the bank of the river and lets down its tail into the water; and the fish swimming up are caught and entangled in the thickness of the hairs. And the foxes, perceiving this, withdraw from the water, and coming to the dry places shake their tails, and the little fish fall out, and they have a most delicate dinner. And the Thracians make this hunting a sure index of the firmness of the freezing of the rivers. And if the fox runs across the ice, it not yielding nor giving way under her steps, they take courage and follow. And she makes trial of the safe passage in this way. She lays her ear to the ice; and if she perceives

that the stream does not echo beneath nor make any quiet noise down in the depth, then she takes courage in the ice as standing firm, and runs across unflinching; but if not, she would not set foot on it. The poets reverence the daughter of Iphis, and the theatres are filled by them hymning that heroine, since she surpassed all others in temperance, having preferred her own husband to life; but the animals have left no excess of affection unmatched. For the dog of Erigone died upon its mistress, and the dog of Silanion likewise upon its master, and neither by force nor by coaxing departed from the tomb. And for Darius, the last king of the Persians, when in the battle against Alexander he had been struck down by Bessus and lay there, all having abandoned the corpse, the dog reared by him alone stayed faithful, not betraying the one who could no longer feed it, as though it were still alive. Something of the sort Xenophon the son of Gryllus plainly tells, with youthful spirit, about the friends of the younger Cyrus: that his messmates alone stayed by him and perished with him, and that the eunuch who was his sceptre-bearer in honour, Artapates by name, killed himself upon the corpse, scorning a life that would be bereft of Cyrus for him. And to King Lysimachus too a dog willingly shared in the common end, though it could have been saved.

The monkey is by some called a mountain-climber, by others, as I hear, a wood-runner, and it is born in the trees and has hair; it is called by some also the flea. Its belly is cut in gently, so to say, as though severed with a thread. It gives most dangerous bites, and trembling follows for the one bitten, and a strong pain comes upon the heart, and the urine is blocked, and the other passage too becomes impassable. And the river-crab, when eaten, seems to be the antidote to the aforesaid.

Of cats the male is most lustful, but the female loves her young, and shuns intercourse with the male; for he discharges his seed most hot and resembling fire, and burns the female's parts. Knowing this, then, the male makes away with the offspring they have in common, and she, out of longing for other young, offers herself to him when he is eager to come together. And they say that cats hate and loathe everything that is foul-smelling. For this reason they discharge their own excrement only after digging a hole, in order to make it disappear by throwing earth upon it.

They say that the most licentious of fish is the octopus, and that it indulges in lust to such a degree that all the strength of its body flows out and is rendered weak, and it is least able to swim and unable to seek food, and for this reason it feeds others. The little fish, at any rate, and what are called the hermit-crabs and the crabs come upon it and devour it. And they say this is the reason why the octopus cannot live longer than a year's time. And the female octopus too is easily consumed, since it gives birth often.

Phylarchus relates that a boy who strongly loved birds received an eaglet as a gift and reared it with varied food and bestowed every care upon it; for he did not rear the bird as a plaything for amusement, but like a beloved or a younger brother—so providently did the boy treat the eagle. And as time went on it kindled them to a strong friendship for each other. It happened that the boy fell ill in body. And the eagle stayed and nursed its rearer, and while he slept kept quiet, and while he was awake stood by him, and while he fasted would not take food. But when

the boy died, the eagle followed even to the tomb; and when the body was being burned, it threw itself into the pyre. The fish called the hake has all its other internal organs not very different from those of others, but it is solitary and cannot endure to live with others. And of fish this one alone has its heart in its belly and stones in its brain, which resemble millstones in shape. And at the rising of Sirius it alone goes into its hole, while the others are accustomed to go into theirs in the most frosty seasons.

Those who hunt crabs have contrived music as a bait against them. With a little pipe (this is the name of an instrument) they catch them. For some of the crabs have sunk into their holes, and others begin to come at the sound of the tune. And the crabs, hearing it, are persuaded as though by some spell to come forth from their chamber, then, drawn by the pleasure, they advance even outside the sea, and the pipers retreat step by step. And the crabs follow and are caught upon the land.

Those who dwell by the lake Mareia hunt the shad there with the clearest of songs and a clapping of shells keeping time with the tune; and the fish, as though dancing to the music, leap up, and fall into the nets, which are spread out for them, and the Egyptians take a fine catch of fish with dancing and play.

I learn that the Egyptians by a certain native magic bring down the birds from the sky; and the snakes, having bewitched them from their holes with certain incantations, they then lead out most easily.

The beaver is an amphibious animal, and by day it lives sunk in the rivers, but by night it roams on the land, feeding on whatever it meets. So it knows the reason why the hunters come against it with all eagerness and onset, and stooping and biting it cuts off its own testicles and throws them to them, like a prudent man who, falling among robbers, lays down all that he is carrying for the sake of his own safety, exchanging these, of course, as a ransom. And if it has previously cut them off and been saved, and is then pursued again, it raises itself up and shows that it has not the object of their zeal, and so frees the hunters from further toil; for they have less concern for its flesh. And often, even while still entire, having run off as far as possible, then drawing up the part that is sought for, most cleverly and craftily they deceive, as though they had not what they kept hidden.

The buprestis is a creature which, if an ox swallows it, the ox is inflamed and bursting dies not long after.

Caterpillars feed on the vegetables, and indeed destroy them. But these are killed if a woman undergoing her monthly purgation passes through the midst of the vegetables.

Bitterest foes to oxen would be the gadfly and the horsefly. And the gadfly is like the largest flies, and has a firm and large sting, and gives off a buzzing and harsh sound; the horsefly resembles the dog-fly, but buzzes more than the gadfly, though it has a smaller sting.

Of those bitten by an asp not one is recorded to have escaped the evil. Hence indeed I hear that the kings of the Egyptians wore embroidered asps upon their diadems, hinting at the invincibility of their rule by the form of the aforesaid creature. There are asps even five cubits long. And most are black or ash-coloured, but you might see a tawny asp too. Those bitten by an asp do not live beyond the fourth hour, but choking and convulsion and hiccupping pursue them, they say. And I hear that the ichneumon destroys the eggs of the asp, as though removing for its own young the future adversaries. And a certain tale says that the Libyan asp even makes men blind by its blast.

Must one not then marvel at nature in this respect too, among others? The fathers of the males destroy most of the fawns, lest they multiply and then mount their mothers; for this seems a defilement even among the irrational creatures, and a polluted deed, no doubt. But to Cyrus and Parysatis, O Persians, these things seemed both noble and just; and Cyrus loved his mother wickedly, and was loved by his mother with a like love. And these things, indeed, were done by them—but men, desiring everything and sparing nothing.

An island in Pontus named after Heracles is held in honour. So all the mice there revere the god, and whatever is dedicated to him they believe to be dedicated as pleasing to the god, and they would not touch it. So a vine flourishes for the god, and is honoured as an offering to him alone, and the ministers of the deity keep the clusters for the sacrifices. So when the grapes come to ripeness, the mice leave the island, lest by remaining they should at least unwillingly touch what it is better not to handle; then when the season is past, they return to their own haunts. And these are good acts of the Pontic mice; but as for Diagoras and Herostratus and the rest of the catalogue of those hateful to the gods, how would they have spared the clusters or other offerings, men who had chosen somehow to plunder even the names and works of the gods?

This is an Egyptian custom. When it rains in Egypt (it rains in fine drops), mice are at once bred. So wandering through the fields these harm the crops, cutting under and shearing off the ears, and indeed by ravaging the heaps of sheaves they grieve the Egyptians. And for this reason they trap them with snares and check them with walls and fend them off with trenches and burn fire in these. But the mice do not even approach the snares from the start, but let them stand idle; and the walls, though smoothed with plaster, they climb, being most apt at leaping, and then leap over the trenches. So when the Egyptians, having given up their devices and contrivances as useless, abandon them and turn instead to prayer and supplications to the gods, then indeed the mice dread the wrath from the gods, and withdraw to some mountain, keeping the order of a square. The youngest go first, and the largest bring up the rear, and turning back they then force the laggards to follow them. And if the youngest, growing weary, hold back, the whole following halts, as is wont to happen in a military force. And when the movement of the foremost begins, then the rest follow too. And those who dwell in Pontus say that the mice do the same there too. And it is believed that from every house which is about to fall they all move out as fast as their feet can carry them. And this too is a peculiarity of mice. When they hear a weasel squeaking or a viper hissing, from the one mouse-hole they move their young, one here, one there.

There is an Italian tale, recalling a deed that flourished along with the city of the Sybarites, and which has come to me, that it is no worse to tell. A boy barely past childhood, a goatherd by occupation, Crathis by name, falling into amorous desire, mingled with the most beautiful to look upon of the she-goats, and took pleasure in the union, and whenever he needed love he went to her, and had her as his beloved. And indeed such gifts as he could obtain, such did the goatherd lover bring to the aforesaid beloved, and sometimes he offered her the loveliest sprays of clover, and often gave her smilax and mastich to browse, making his own mouth fragrant for her, should he need to kiss her. And he prepared too a bed for her to sleep in, as for a bride, most delicate and soft. But the leader of the herd, the he-goat, did not behold these things heedlessly, but jealousy stirred him. And he hid his anger for a time, but once, while the boy was sitting and even sleeping, he lay in wait for him; and the boy had buried his face in his lap. So with all his force the he-goat dashed his head against him, and crushed his skull. The deed, then, spread among the natives, and they raised over the boy a tomb not without renown, and from him named the river Crathis. And from the union with the goat a child was born, with the legs of a goat and the face of a man. This one too, the story says, was deified, and the same was held to be a god of the woodland and the glen. So the he-goat teaches that the animals partake of jealousy too.

The historians sing of Egyptian galleries, and they too, and the tribe of poets, sing of certain Cretan labyrinths; but the varied paths and windings and circuits of ants in their burrowing they do not yet know. By wisdom they fashion this underground household most winding, rendering the passage difficult or even wholly impassable for the beasts that plot against them. And the earth they dig out, this they throw up around the mouth and make, as it were, walls and bulwarks, so that the water rushing down from heaven may not then easily flood and destroy them all or at least most of them. And they wall off with certain partition-walls the chambers that divide the burrows from one another, and that most skillfully, and there would be three areas, as in a stately house. And one they make a men's quarter, in which dwell the males and such females as are with them; the second, where the pregnant ants give birth, a kind of women's quarter; and a third, another, they set apart as a treasury and granary for the gathered seeds. And neither Ischomachus there nor Socrates, zealous for enviable household management, teaches them these things. And the ants going forth, as if to gather provisions, follow the largest, who lead like generals. And coming to the cornfields, the still young ones wait below at the stalk, while the leaders creep up, and biting through what are called the tail-ends of the grain throw them down to the people below; and they, going round, cut off the beards and shell out the little husks that cover and enwrap the wheat. And needing neither threshing nor men able to winnow nor winds urged on to separate and divide the chaff and the grain, the ants have food without men ploughing and sowing. And this too I have heard as wise: that the kinsfolk bury their dead ants in the husks of the wheat, as men bury their fathers or all that is dear to them in coffins.

A horse, if it meets with care, requites its benefactor with goodwill and friendship. And what kind of horse Bucephalas was to Alexander runs everywhere as a tale, and it is no more pleasant for me to tell it. And the horse of Antiochus that avenged its master and killed the Galatian who had cut down Antiochus in the battle (the Galatian's name was Centoarates)—this one too I pass by. But Socles (for I do not think many know this man) was an Athenian, and was both reputed and by nature beautiful. He, then, bought a horse, lovely too, but strongly amorous and somehow wiser than other horses. So it fell most ardently in love with its master, and as he approached it neighed, and as he patted it it whinnied, and as he mounted it offered itself obedient, and as he stood by facing it, it gazed at him with melting eyes. And these things, being amorous, yet seemed pleasant; but when it was as though too forward, eager to do something to the youth, and a tale more outrageous spread about them both, Socles, not bearing the slander, hating it as a licentious lover, sold the horse. And it, not enduring the deprivation of the beautiful one, freed itself from life by a most violent starving.

There is bitterest enmity between the francolin and the cock, and again the cock against the francolin, and the hawk against the crow and it against him, and the raven against the sea-hawk and he against the raven, and the raven and the hawk against the turtledove, and indeed the turtledove against each. And I learn that the stork hates the bat, and it hates back in return as an enemy, and that the pelican is not friendly to the quail. And the hatred, I hear, is mutual.

The eagle is killed by what is called comfrey, the ibis by the gall of a hyena, the starling by garlic-seed, the plover by asphalt, and the hedgehog by what is called pondweed. The hedgehog cannot endure the gall of the shearwater. The hawk and the gull and the turtledove and the blackbird and the tribe of vultures, if they gnaw a pomegranate that has been cut, perish. Cedar leaves destroy the reed-warbler, the flower of the chaste-tree the blackcap, and rocket-seed the raven. By perfume the beetle dies, and by the fat of a gazelle the hoopoe. The crow, coming upon the remnant of flesh devoured by a wolf, dies. The lark dies by mustard-seed, and the crane, having sucked the sap of a vine, perishes.

About the hare too it occurs to me to say here such things as these. The hare does not come to its accustomed form before it has confused its tracks, here going in, there going out, in order to make disappear the plot of the hunters against it, the creature by a certain natural wisdom deceiving men most craftily.

The mare, too, was a good mother and clever at remembering the colt born of her. Recognizing this, then, Darius the Lower used to bring into battle mares that had left their young at home fresh from the birth. And the colts, orphaned of their mothers, are reared on strange milk, just as men too are. So when the turning of the battle at Issus began to press the Persians, and Darius was being defeated, he mounted a mare, needing flight and swiftest safety. And she, by memory of the one left behind, as eagerly as her feet allowed, is celebrated as having snatched her master

from the height of the dangers pressing upon him. An old mule at Athens, released from its labours by its own master, as Aristotle says, did not release itself from love of toil and willingness to work as befitted its age. At any rate, when the Athenians were building the Parthenon, though it neither dragged nor bore burdens, yet it went uncalled and willingly, as it were a trace-horse, alongside the young mules carrying their loads along the road, escorting, as one might say, and urging on the work by walking together with them, like an old craftsman released by old age from working himself, but by experience and instruction at once spurring on and encouraging the young. So the people, learning these things, ordered the herald to proclaim that, whether it came to the barley-meal or approached the barley, it should not be fended off, but allowed to feed its fill, and that the people should pay the money in the Prytaneum—a kind of meals granted to an athlete now grown old.

That Cleanthes of Assos was compelled, even unwillingly, to yield and concede that the animals too do not fail of reasoning, though he strongly and forcibly argued the contrary, such a history, they say, brought about. Cleanthes happened to be sitting, and indeed having an unusually long leisure. So there were many ants about his feet. And he sees, from one path, other ants carrying a dead ant to the dwelling of others not of their own kind, and standing on the edge of the anthill by the dead one, and others coming up from below and meeting the strangers as for some purpose, then going down again, the same ones, and this many times. And at last they brought a worm as a kind of ransom, and the others took it and gave up the dead one they had been carrying. And they received it gladly, as kinsmen recovering a son or brother. What then does Hesiod say to this, who says that Zeus distributed the natures, and so to fish and beasts and winged birds he gave to eat one another, since there is no justice among them, but to men he gave justice? But Priam would not say this, if indeed he too ransomed Hector with many precious and wondrous treasures from a man—man from man, and from the hero and offspring of Zeus, being himself too the offspring of Zeus.

The deed itself reveals to us the name of the dipsas. And it is smaller in size than the viper, but quicker to kill; for those who fall victim to its bite are kindled to thirst and inflamed to drink, and gulp in great draughts, and most swiftly burst. And Sostratus says that the dipsas is white, but has on its tail two black lines. And I hear that some call them "burners," and others "scorchers"; indeed they pour a crowd of names upon this creature. It is called also "black-tail," they say, and "sand-walker"; and if you hear "sting-snake," understand that the same is meant by me. And I must sing too a myth about this animal, which I know from hearing, that I may not seem ignorant of it. Report says that Prometheus stole fire, and the myth says that Zeus was angry and gave to those who informed of the theft a drug that wards off old age. This, then, I learn, those who received it placed upon an ass. And the ass went forward carrying its burden, and it was the summer season, and the ass, being thirsty, came to a spring for the need of drink. So the snake guarding it fended it off and drove it away, and the ass, being tortured, gave it as a reward for its kindness the very drug it happened to be carrying. So an exchange takes place, and the one drinks, the other puts off old age, taking in addition, as the story goes, the ass's thirst. What then? Am I the maker of the myth? But I would not say so, since before me too Sophocles the tragic poet, and Dinolochus the rival of Epicharmus, and Ibycus of Rhegium, and Aristias and Apollophanes the comic poets, sing of it.

If I should pass over a wise deed of the elephant, someone will say that I did not tell it from ignorance. And it is worth hearing, and therefore let us hear it. The man entrusted with the care of its feeding used to take away some of the barley, and by mixing in stones he rendered most of it uneatable to the elephant, but preserved the bulk of the measure before the master who inspected them both. And for a time he escaped notice. So the elephant, seeing the man who plotted against it boiling porridge, with its trunk took up a heap of the sand at its feet and threw it into the pot, and avenged itself in return for what it had suffered by what it did, most cleverly.

The other dogs are clever at catching and tracking the wild beasts, but the Egyptian dogs are most skillful at fleeing. The dogs in the Nile, at any rate, fearing the creatures there, are led by thirst to drink, but fear does not permit them to drink quietly and to satiety. And for this reason they do not drink stooping, lest something creeping up from below should then snatch them away. So they run along the bank, and lap with the tongue, snatching, as one might say, or, by Zeus, even stealing the drink.

The hedgehog—not the sea one, but the land one—is in many other ways crafty, as I have already told; but a cunning trick of its which I have not mentioned shall now be told. When about to be caught, having rolled itself up it renders itself uncatchable, and then it presses in its breath and stays motionless and still and counterfeits the dead.

The limpets—you could not tear them from the rocks, not even if you laid hold with the fingers of Milo, who most firmly and warily held the pomegranate, so that none of his adversaries could take it from his right hand. And whoever attempts to tear a limpet from the rock to which it clings is laughed at as he toils and provides amusement. At any rate he is unable to gain possession of what he is after. But scraped with iron it splits off from the rock at last.

The Libyans make war not only on their neighbours, that they may have more than they, but also on the elephants. And those animals know that the motive of the expedition against them is nothing else but their tusks. So those that have been maimed in one tusk stand at the front, the rest putting them forward, that some may receive the first onset and others defend themselves with the strength of their tusks unimpaired and equally matched—perhaps too philosophizing against the Libyans and showing them that they have not come to risk themselves for a great prize. They use the one tusk as a weapon, and keep it sharp, and the other as a mattock; for with it they dig up roots, and prising up trees they lay them down.

Not only, then, were the spiders weavers and handy after the manner of Athena Ergane and the goddess Penitis, but they are by nature also skilled in geometry. At any rate they keep the centre and make exact the circle from it and its circumference most strongly, and they need no Euclid at all; for they sit in the middle, in the centre, lying in wait for their own prey. And they are, so to speak, both noble weavers and handy at mending; and whatever you tear of their well-spun and well-threaded craft, they mend, and render it again unharmed and whole.

Without arithmetic the phoenixes know how to reckon the number of five hundred years, being pupils of most wise nature, and for this reason needing neither fingers nor anything else for the knowledge of arithmetic. The reason why they know this, and must know it, is a common tale. But that the time of the five hundred years is fulfilled, either some one or none of the Egyptians knows, and even these are very few of the priests. These, at any rate, cannot easily agree with one another about it, but some wrangle, disputing with each other that this divine bird will come not now but later, or that it ought to have come; but while they dispute thus, it, apart from them, marvellously signals the time and is present. And they, of necessity, must sacrifice and confess that they spend their leisure in the lecture-halls making the sun set, but do not know as much as the birds. But are not these things wise, by the gods—to know where Egypt is, and where Heliopolis, where it is fated to come, and where it must lay its father and in what tomb? But if these things do not seem marvellous, shall we call the doings of the market-place and of arms and the other plots of men against and upon one another wise? To me they do not seem so, O men who are emulators of Sisyphus and the Cercopes and the Telchines. And I speak to those who practice these things exactly; but to those uninitiated in the aforesaid evils I do not speak.

If the animals also know the power of reasoning and discrimination and of choosing this rather than that, we might fittingly call nature the invincible teacher of all things. To me, at any rate, a man who had tasted of dialectic and was somehow concerned with hunting told such a thing as this. There was a hunting dog, said he. So it went on the track of a hare. And the hare was not yet seen, but the dog, running on, comes upon a trench, and is at a loss whether it is better to pursue to the right or to the other side; and when it seemed to have weighed the matter sufficiently, it then leaped straight across. The man, then, who claimed to be both a dialectician and a hunter, tried somehow to draw from this a proof of what he had said. The dog, halting, considered and said to itself, "Either this way or that way or yonder the hare turned. But not this way nor that way; therefore yonder." And it did not seem to me to be quibbling; for the tracks not being seen on this side of the trench, it was left for the hare to have leaped over it. So with reason it leaped after it; for that dog was a tracker and keen of scent.

The Massagetae, as Herodotus says, hang up the quiver before themselves, and then the male consorts with the female openly, even if all should see them, those men caring nothing. But the union of camels would never be done openly, nor in the sight, as it were, of witnesses; but whether we call it shame or a secret gift of nature, let us leave these things to Democritus and the others competent to examine and state the causes of things inscrutable and not to be compared. And indeed the herdsman too goes off somewhere, when he perceives the impulse of their coming together with one another, as one withdrawing for a bride and bridegroom passing into the chamber.

Lycurgus enacts a most humane law, as I think: that the younger should give up their seats and the road to the elders, out of reverence for an age to which all pray to come, if indeed this is fated for them. But how could the noble son of Eunomus contend with and be matched against the laws of nature? The race of elephants, at any rate, attend to these things, O you Lycurguses and Solons and Zaleuci and Charondases, for whom they make no laws at all, and yet they do such things, and the young give up their food to the elders, and tend them when relaxed by old age, and rescue them from dangers, and when they have fallen into pits raise them up, throwing in armfuls and bundles of brushwood, which the others, using as steps, then climb up, being heavy with age. Where, now, has an elephant beaten its father with blows? Where, now, has a father among them disinherited his son? But to you perhaps, O men, I seem to be telling tales to craftsmen (if we wish to speak the truth)

and poets of the unbelievable myths. That the dog is a lover of its master, the things already told give proof, and one must add to them this too, no doubt. Gelon of Syracuse, sleeping most deeply, dreamed that he had been struck by Zeus's thunderbolt. And the apparition was a dream, but he cried out, though asleep, and that with a very sharp and piercing voice. So a dog reared by him, hearing the voice of its friend and rearer, as though Gelon were in danger of suffering something from a plot, leaping up with all its force onto the bed and standing over its rearer, barked most violently, as if to ward off the attacker. So Gelon awoke, both from fear and from the barking, casting off sleep, though it was very deep.

A young snake becomes the foster-companion of a young child of Arcadian race, and that one too a native. So as they grew up together in age, the boy was now a youth, and the foster-companion was now exceedingly great. And they loved each other, but those related to the youth dreaded the size of the beast; for this creature, very quickly, you would see greatest in size, and most fearful to look upon. So while it slept with the boy upon the same bed, they took it up and carried it as far away as possible, and the boy got up, but the snake remained. And when it had reached the wood and the native herbs there, it stayed there, delighting in the food of snakes and choosing solitude before the haunts of the city and those in houses. And as time crept on it made the one a young man, and rendered the other a now full-grown snake. And once, going through a solitude, the Arcadian, the lover and beloved of the aforesaid creature, fell among robbers, and being struck with a sword cried out, as was natural, partly from pain, partly calling for allies. And the snake, then, was of animals the keenest of sight and the quickest of hearing. So it, having been reared with him, hears the voice, and hissing sharply, as though enraged, astonished them, and trembling seized them, and all that was villainous scattered, one here, one there; and indeed it destroyed some that it caught with a most pitiable death; but having cleansed the wounds of its old friend and escorted him past all that was beset with beasts, it went off departing to where they had set it out, neither angry over the casting-out, nor, like the wicked among men, overlooking in danger one who had until then been most dear.

The fox is a wicked creature, whence indeed the poets like to call it "the crafty one"; and the land-hedgehog is wicked too. And it lies curled up, having seen the fox come; and she, unable to gape and bite it, then urinated into its mouth; and it is choked, the breath being held within from the curling-up and the aforesaid liquid flowing in upon it; and indeed in this way one evil creature, the fox, getting round another evil one, the hedgehog, has caught it. And above another kind of catching has been told.

About the place called Conopion (it is a place of the Maeotis) the wolves keep faithfully by the line-fishermen and seafaring men, and if you saw them, you would not say they differed from house-watching dogs. So if these wolves get their portion of the sea-catch, they are peaceful and at truce with the fishermen; but if not, they tear apart their nets and make them disappear, and the wolves exact from them a penalty for their lack of a share.