Book 8

Indian tales teach us these things too. The hunters lead their hounds—the well-bred ones, good at picking out the tracks of beasts and swiftest in running—to the regions full of game, and tying them to trees, they then depart, having simply, as the saying goes, thrown the dice. When tigers come upon them, if they have fallen into a lack of prey and are hungry, they tear the hounds to pieces; but if they arrive in heat and well-fed, they mate with them, and even those beasts, in their fullness, remember love. From this union, they say, not a hound but a tiger is born. From this in turn, and from a bitch, a tiger might still be born; but the offspring of this one and of a bitch reverts to its mother, and the seed slips down toward the worse, and a hound is born. To these things Aristotle will not object. These hounds, then, which can boast a tiger for a father, disdain to hunt a deer or to close with a boar, but rejoice to dart upon lions, thereby displaying their lineage from above. To Alexander the son of Philip the Indians gave proof of the courage of these hounds in this way. They let loose a deer, and the hound stayed quiet; then a boar, and it remained motionless; then a bear after these, and the bear did not vex it at all; but when a lion was let loose, then, as it saw it, the more did anger sink into it, and, having beheld its true adversary, it neither hesitated nor stayed still, but darting at the lion it held on with a powerful grip, squeezing and throttling. The Indian, then, who was furnishing the king with this spectacle, knowing well the dog's tenacity, ordered that its tail be cut off. The tail was cut off, but it took no notice. Then the Indian ordered one of its legs to be cut off too, and it was cut off; but the hound held on as it had from the first, and did not let go, as though some other leg, a stranger's, were being cut off. And another was cut off, and the hound did not relax its bite; and a third one besides, and it held fast; and the fourth after these, and it was still master of its bite. And at last they cut away the rest of the body from the head; but its teeth still hung from the original grip, and the head was held aloft from the lion, even though the biter himself was no longer there. Alexander then was distressed, astonished at the hound, that having given proof of itself it had perished, suffering the opposite of cowards, and bartering death for its courage. So the Indian, seeing him distressed, gave him four hounds like that one. And Alexander was pleased to receive them, and gave gifts in return such as was fitting, and the son of Philip, on receiving the four, forgot his grief for the first.

Every hunting hound that has itself taken a beast is pleased, and treats the catch as a prize, if its master grants it to him; but if not, it keeps the prey alive until the hunter comes and decides about the captured creature whatever he wishes. But coming upon a dead hare or boar, it would not touch it, not inscribing itself upon another's labours, and least of all deeming it right to appropriate what does not belong to it. From this it seems to have within itself something of natural ambition; for it has no need of meat, but is in love with victory. And it is worth hearing what the hunting hound does at the time of the hunt. It goes before the huntsman, fastened to a long leash, and follows the scent while holding back its voice with self-control. And as long as a lack of game meets it, and it lights upon nothing, it goes on, to all sight and judgment, rather downcast; and indeed, going forward, the hound draws the hunter on eagerly and most steadfastly. But if it traces a scent and lights upon the smell of some beast, there it stands still. The huntsman comes near, and the hound, overjoyed at its success, fawns upon its master and kisses his feet, and again takes up the tracking from where it began, and goes forward step by step until it reaches the lair, and no farther does it advance. The hunter understands, then, and with a low cry he signals to the net-keepers, and they spread the nets around. And then, at the right moment, the hound barks; and its cry now means to rouse the boar to start up, so that it may break out in flight and be caught in the nets. When the beast is taken, the hound cries out a kind of victory paean, and rejoices and skips about, like soldiers who have conquered their enemies. These things the hounds do in the hunting of boars and deer.

Dolphins too, it seems, were more righteous than men at repaying a favour, and are not liable to that custom of the Persians which even Xenophon praises. What I mean is this. A man named Coeranus, of Parian descent, when certain dolphins had fallen into a net at Byzantium and been caught, gave money like a ransom to those who had caught them, and set them free; in return for which he received their gratitude. He was once sailing, as the story goes, in a fifty-oared ship carrying certain Milesians, and in the strait between Naxos and Paros, when the ship had capsized and the others had perished, the dolphins saved Coeranus, repaying in equal measure the kindness they had first received. And the place where they swam carrying him to shore is shown as a headland and a cavernous rock, and the spot is called Coeraneus. Some time later, when this Coeranus was dead, they burned him near the sea. Then the dolphins, somehow perceiving it, gathered, as though come to the funeral, and as long as the pyre blazed and burned they remained, like a faithful friend to a friend; and then, when it was quenched, they swam away. But men, indeed, court the living and the rich and those who seem to prosper, but turn their backs on the dead or on those in misfortune, that they may not have to pay any gratitude for benefits received.

There were fishes too at once gentle and tame, and of such a kind as to obey when called, and to receive food readily from those who gave it—such as the sacred eel at Arethusa. They sing too of the lamprey of Crassus the Roman, which was adorned with earrings and little necklaces set with jewels, like a girl in her bloom, and when Crassus called it recognized the voice and swam up, and whatever he held out it ate eagerly, taking it readily. This lamprey, indeed, Crassus wept for, so I hear, when it ended its life, and buried it. And once when Domitius said to him, "Fool, you wept for a dead lamprey," he replied, "I wept for a beast; but you, who buried three wives, did not weep." I hear the Egyptians say that the sacred crocodiles are gentle, and that when their keepers touch and stroke them they endure it and bear it lightly, and gape when those men put in their hands

and clean their teeth and remove the bits of flesh that have got in. The Egyptians say, moreover, that these crocodiles aforesaid have a share of prophecy too, and they bring forward this proof. When Ptolemy—ask the Egyptians which one this was—called the gentlest of the crocodiles, they say it did not obey, and when he held out food it did not approach; and the priests understood that the crocodile, knowing that the end was coming upon Ptolemy, therefore disdained to take food from him. I hear that some men prophesy by birds, and sitting in observation of fowl examine their flights and their perchings. And celebrated for this wisdom are the Teiresiases and Polydamases and Polyidi and Theoclymeni and many others. And there were others skilled at judging the dispositions of entrails—Silani and Megistiae and Euclidae, and after these a long list. I hear, however, of some who say that certain men prophesy by barley-meal and by sieves and by little cheeses. And I have learned of a certain Lycian village between Myra and Phellus, named Sura, in which some prophesy by sitting over fish, and they know what the fishes' coming, when summoned, and their withdrawal mean, and what they reveal when they do not obey, and what they signify when they come in numbers. You will hear from these wise men prophecies drawn both from a fish that leaps and one that floats up from the deep and one that takes the food offered, and again from one that does not take it.

Easily mastered, too, and most easily caught, were asses by wolves, bees by bee-eaters, cicadas by swallows, and snakes by deer. The leopard catches most creatures by its smell, and the ape still more so.

I hear Megasthenes say that in the Indian sea there is born a little fish, and that while it lives it is invisible, swimming somewhere below and in the deep, but when dead it floats up. Whoever touches it grows faint at first, and then dies. As for the chelydrus, anyone who treads on it, even if he is not bitten, as Apollodorus says in his treatise On Venomous Creatures, dies in any case; for it has something putrefying, and he says that the mere touch of the creature is enough. And indeed, he who tries somehow to treat and aid the dying man gets blisters on his hands, since he has touched only the man who trod on it. And Aristoxenus somewhere says that a man killed a certain snake with his hands and, though not bitten, nevertheless died; and the garment which he happened to be wearing when he killed the snake also rotted not long after.

Nicander says that the skin of the amphisbaena, wrapped around a staff, drives off all snakes and the other creatures which kill not by biting but by striking.

A dog troubled by repletion knows a grass that grows in the stone walls, and having tasted of it, it vomits up all that pains it, with phlegm and bile, and a great deal of refuse passes from it, and it procures its own deliverance, without needing physicians as allies at all. And it discharges, moreover, a quantity of black bile, which, if it remained, would produce in dogs madness, a grievous disease. And when full of worms, they eat the beards of grain, as Aristotle says. When wounded, they have in their tongue a remedy, with which, licking around the wounded part, they bring it back to health, having bidden a long farewell to bandages and dressings and compounds of drugs. And this too has not escaped the dog, that the fruit of the manna-ash fattens swine, but brings on hip-pain for itself; and seeing a sow stuffing herself with the fruit aforesaid, it keeps away from it very firmly, even from what seems pleasant. But men

are often overcome, quite without self-control, by those who persuade them to eat against their will. Not easily would an ambush escape the elephants. At any rate, when they come near the trench which those hunting them are accustomed to dig, whether by some natural understanding or, by Zeus, by a secret prophetic sense, they are checked from advancing farther, and turning themselves about they then stand their ground, as in war, most stoutly, and try to overturn the hunters and, having forced their way through them, to procure their safety by flight, becoming the stronger over their adversaries. There then arises, at that moment, a fierce battle, and slaughter on both sides. The manner of this battle is as follows. The men hurl strong spears, aiming at them, while the elephants seize whoever comes within reach, and dashing him to the ground and trampling him and wounding him with their tusks, they bring upon him a most pitiable and most painful end. The beasts advance, in their fury, spreading out their ears like sails, after the manner of the great ostriches, which spread their wings and either flee or advance; and the elephants, curving up their trunks and folding them under their tusks, like the ram of a ship borne along with a great surge, fall upon them with most violent rush and overturn many, trumpeting a piercing and shrill note like a trumpet. And as those caught are trampled and crushed by the knees, a great crash of bones being shattered is heard even from afar, and as their eyes are squeezed out of their faces and their noses crushed and their foreheads broken, the distinctness of their appearance is lost, and they often become unrecognizable even to their nearest kin. But others are unexpectedly saved in this way. The hunter is caught, but the beast in its rush overpasses him, and drives its knees into the ground, and fixes its tusks fast into a bush or a root or some such thing, and is held, and only with difficulty pulls them out and frees them; and in the meantime the huntsman slips out and gets away. So in such a battle the elephants often prevail, but often too are defeated, when the men bring against them terrors devised by stratagem and varied fears. For trumpets sound, and they make a din and a clatter, striking their spears against their shields, and some fire they kindle upon the ground, and some they raise aloft, and other fire they sling, hurling blazing brands and shaking violently against the faces of the beasts long torches of fire at its height. And the beasts, fearing these and confounded, are pushed back, and sometimes are even forced to fall into the trench which till then they had guarded against.

Hegemon, in his Dardanian verses, says of Aleuas the Thessalian many things, and among them that a serpent fell in love with him. That this Aleuas had golden hair is a marvel he tells in the saying; for me let it be fair. And he says that Aleuas herded cattle on Mount Ossa, as Anchises did on Ida, and pastured the cows by the spring called Haemonia. The spring too would be Thessalian. A serpent of the greatest size, then, fell in love with Aleuas, and crept up to him, and kissed his hair, and licking the face of its beloved with its tongue cleaned it, and brought him many gifts of its hunting. And if a ram was overcome by Glauce the lyre-player, and a dolphin at Iasus by a youth, what prevents a serpent too from falling in love with a beautiful herdsman, since it has become, with its keen sight, a good judge of conspicuous beauty? It was, then, peculiar to animals to fall in love not only with one of their own kind and nature, but even with what was least akin to them, provided it was beautiful.

The pareias, or parouas—for so Apollodorus would have it—is reddish in colour, fair to look upon in the eye, broad of mouth, not dangerous to bite, but gentle. For this reason they dedicated it as sacred to the most humane of the gods, and those who first traced these things out gave it the name of attendant of Asclepius.

In Ethiopia the scorpions called Sibritae—for so the natives are likely to call them—I hear feed on lizards and asps and millipedes and water-beetles and every creeping thing, and whoever treads upon their droppings, I have learned, breaks out in sores. About Corcyra there are born the so-called hydrae, which turn upon their pursuers and, breathing out a strange breath, then check them in their rush and turn them back. The typhlops, which they also call typhline and besides "the deaf one," has a head much like a lamprey's, so one account says, but exceedingly small eyes. And one of its two names it has from this; the other, "deaf one," because it is dull of hearing. It has a strong hide, very slow to be cut through. The acontias they say is an amphibious snake, and spends much of its time on dry land, and lies in wait for every creature. The cunning of its plot is of this kind. It hides somewhere unseen along the highways, and often, having crept up onto a tree, then coiling itself up and hiding its head in the coil, it eyes quietly the passers-by; then it launches itself at whatever passes, whether it be an irrational animal or a man. It is a leaping creature, able to spring across even twenty cubits, if need be; and as it leaps it at once fastens on.

Wolves, if they happen upon an ox that has fallen into a deep marsh, harass it from outside and frighten it,

not allowing it to swim across and set foot on the land, but in time they compel it, writhing and twisting, to be choked to death. Then one of them, the most accomplished, leaping into the water and bending toward it, takes hold of the ox's tail and drags it outward; and another, taking hold of that one, drags him; and the third the second, and the fourth this one, and the thing described is done down to the last, who stands outside the water. And in this manner, having drawn out the ox, they make a meal of it. And if they catch in ambush a calf that has strayed, they leap upon it, and taking hold of its muzzle they drag it; and it pulls against them, and there is much contest over it, the wolves trying to force it, and the calf making it a struggle not to yield. But when they see it straining hard against them in this way, they let go; and the calf, by the force of its own backward pull, is overturned, and the wolves fall upon it and tear open its belly and eat it. When elephants are unable to cross a trench, one of them, the largest, throws himself into it, and stands across it, and bridges the gap, and walking over him the rest go to the far side and escape—first, however, rescuing him too. And the manner of his rescue is this. One from above stretches out his foot, and offers that one his trunk to wind around; and the others throw in brushwood and logs as quickly as possible, on which, climbing and having his foot held very firmly and carefully, he is pulled up most easily. There is in India a tract of land, and it is called Phalacra, the Bald Place. The cause of the name is that whoever tastes of the grass that grows there loses both his hair and his horns. The elephants, therefore, of their own will do not approach this tract, but turn away when they come near it, fleeing all that is harmful, like prudent men—the elephants.

The sponge is steered by a small creature, not like a crab in form, but rather like a spider. For the sponge is no soulless thing, nor without a share of blood—it is an offspring of the sea, and clings to the rocks, just as other things do, but has a certain motion of its own, and needs, as one might say, something to remind it that it is alive. For when it lies still, through a kind of natural porousness, and is quiet, then, when something falls into its openings, it is pricked by the spider-like creature, and seizes what has fallen in, and gets its food. And when a man approaches to cut it off, being stung by its companion creature it bristles and contracts itself, and becomes the cause of much labour and toil, by Zeus, to the gatherer.

We have spoken, then, of elephants separately, and shall speak of them more. Just as they are masters of their way of life, so, in what manner they have a share of self-control, it is most fitting to say. For they do not come to union with the female as though in wantonness or lust, but like those who need a continuation of their race and beget offspring, that the line of descent from one another may not fail them, but that they may leave seed behind. Once, at any rate, in their lifetime they call to mind love, when the female too submits; then, each having filled his mate, he thereafter knows her no more. And they do not couple openly, nor in the sight of the others, but having withdrawn; and they set before themselves either dense trees or some thick wood or a hollow and deep place that affords them abundant concealment. That they are just, I said above, and their courage too has already been told; and now this present matter has demonstrated their self-control. But their hatred of wickedness too, whoever has leisure to learn it, let him incline his ears and hear. A tame elephant had a keeper, and he had a wife older than himself, but rich. So, being in love with another woman, and eager that his wife's property should become that other's, this hot-headed man strangled her and buried her near the elephant's stall, and married the other. There, then, the elephant, taking hold with its trunk of the newly arrived woman, led her near the dead one, and digging her up with its tusks and laying the body bare, showed by the very deeds those things which it could not say, teaching the woman the character of the man who had married her—the elephant that hated wickedness.

Anchovies—some call them encrasicholi, but I have heard a third name for them too, for there are those who call them "wolf-mouths." They are little fishes, prolific by nature, and very white to look at. The fishes that go in shoals eat them most of all. So, when frightened, they run together, and each holding to its neighbour, by that close packing it escapes being easily plotted against. So great, indeed, does their union become when they have run together, that not even passing ferry-boats split them; and indeed, if anyone should wish to pass an oar or a pole through them, they are not torn apart, but hold to one another as if woven together. And if you put down your hand, you may, as from a heap of grain or beans, draw them out by force, so that they are often even torn apart, and half of the little fishes are taken while the rest are left. For you will hold the tail-part, while the head remains with the others; or you will carry a head home, while the rest remains in the sea. Their dense and continuous shoal is called a "haul," and one haul has often filled fifty fishing-boats, as the seafarers say.

The sow recognizes the voice of the swineherd, and obeys when he calls, even if it has strayed; and the proof of this is near at hand. Off the Tyrrhenian coast some malefactors brought to land a pirate ship, and coming up they happened upon a steading, and the steading was a swineherds', and it had many sows. These, then, they seized and threw into the ship, and casting off the cables they set about their voyage. The swineherds, while the pirates were present, kept quiet; but when the men had got out to sea, as far as the carry of a shout, then the swineherds called the sows back to themselves with their accustomed cry. And the sows, when they heard, crowding themselves to one side of the ship, overturned it. And the malefactors were at once destroyed, while the sows swam back to their own masters.

They say that the stork too is jealous. At Crannon in Thessaly a man who had married a beautiful woman named Alcinoe, leaving her at home, set out on a journey abroad. Now Alcinoe consorted with one of the servants. The household stork, perceiving this, did not endure it, but avenged his master. Leaping upon her, it blinded the woman's eyes. Earlier I made mention of the jealousy of a purple coot, then of such a dog; and now of a stork doing the same as they against a marriage gone sick.

Sheep change their colours through the change in their drink, according to the peculiar nature of the rivers; and the season of the year at which this befalls them is the time of their mating. So they turn from white to black, and again change the colour the other way. This is wont somehow to happen about the river in Antandria and the one in Thrace, whose name the Thracians who dwell beside it will tell. But the Scamander at Troy, since it makes the ewes that drink of it yellow, has had set upon it, alongside its original name Scamander, another name, Xanthus, from the acquired colour of the sheep.

Animals are good at remembering a kindness in this respect too. At Tarentum there was a woman in other respects worthy of esteem, and chaste, moreover, toward her husband; Heracleïs was her name. While her husband lived she tended him most carefully; but when he ended his life, the woman aforesaid came to hate the haunts of the city and the house in which she had seen her husband dead, and as her grief moved her she moved her dwelling to the tombs, and remained, enduring hardship, by the grave of her one-time husband, showing herself faithful to him who was beneath the earth. And once it was summertime, and as young storks were making their first trial of their own flight, one, the youngest, still not in command of his wings, slipped down and broke one of his two legs. So Heracleïs, seeing the fall and learning of the injury to the foot, pitied the nestling, and taking it up with much care she bound up the hurt, and treated it with fomentations and plasters, and brought it food and offered it drink, and in due time, when it had grown strong and grown its swift wings, she let it go free. And it, knowing by some natural and wonderful sense that it owed a ransom for its life, went away. Then, when a year had passed, she happened to be warming herself in the sun as spring was dawning, and the stork that had been healed by her, seeing its benefactress, slackened the rush of its wings, and bringing itself down in a lower flight came near, and gaping disgorged a stone into the lap of Heracleïs, and spreading its wings settled itself upon the roof. At first, as was natural, she wondered, and being disturbed was at a loss, unable to make out what had happened; but she put the stone away somewhere within, and then, waking by night, she sees it giving off a kind of light and gleam, and the house was lit up as though a torch had been brought in—so great was the radiance that rose and was born from the stone. And taking up the stork and stroking it she observed the scar from the wound, and recognized that this was the very one that had met with her pity and her care.

A lobster, if you should take it and carry it very far away, leaving a mark from where you caught it, you will find again in the same place from which it was taken. I mean, if you carry it along the seaside and then set it down somewhere near, so that it can creep into the sea.

Agreus is its name, a winged creature by nature, of the clan of blackbirds, black in colour, musical in voice. It is called Agreus, "the hunter," and rightly; for by its song it catches the tender young of other birds as they fly to it, charmed by its fine music. Knowing, then, the advantage that is bred in it, it seems to use the gift of Nature for pleasure and for food at once; for in hearing itself it is gladdened, and in hunting what comes to it it fills itself. If anyone should catch this bird and shut it up in a little cage, his pains profit him nothing; for he has a voiceless bird, which avenges itself upon its captor for its slavery by silence.

Above I told of the kindness that the trochilus-birds render to the crocodiles, which Herodotus too mentions in his Egyptian account; but what I did not say, though I knew it, shall now be told, that another too may learn. The trochilus is one of the marsh birds, and roams along the banks of rivers and feeds, picking up whatever it chances upon; and the crocodile too feeds it in the way I have said. And the bird repays it by looking out for it when it sleeps and keeping watch over it; for when it lies and slumbers the ichneumon plots against it, and fastening on its throat has often choked it; but the trochilus cries out and strikes it on the nose and rouses it and sets it on against its enemy. Whether, then, one ought to praise the bird for being so thoughtful of a beast omnivorous and gluttonous, we shall consider; but I have told what is peculiar to these creatures.

The stingray—I do not now mean the one of the air, but the one in the sea—when it wishes, swims, and again, rising up, flies. It has a sting, of which I made mention above too, that brings death. Now that it stings both irrational animals and men and destroys them at once is not yet a marvel; but what is worthy of astonishment shall be told. If you bring the sting to the largest tree, very flourishing and well-grown and exceedingly luxuriant in its foliage, and prick the tree, not long after it casts off its leaves; and as these fall to the ground the whole trunk withers, and looks as if it had been struck by the sun.

The elephant is born coming out head first, and the size of the newborn is that of the largest piglet. To one mother several little elephants follow, they say. And if you should wish to touch the calves when they are newly born, the mothers are not at all vexed but allow it; for they understand that no one touches them to harm or to punish them, but that all do so caressing and fondling them. For who would injure so small a creature? But when, being hunted, they fall into the trench, and see that escape is now impossible for them, they take forgetfulness of their former spirit that went with freedom, and when men hold out food they readily accept it, and when they offer water they drink, and when men pour wine into their trunks they do not refuse the pledge of friendship.

The fish called ellops men hold to have been called by the poet "the sacred fish." A certain account says that it is rare, and is caught in the sea off Pamphylia, though there too only scantily. And if it is caught, the fishermen adorn themselves with garlands over their good fortune, and they garland the boats too, and put in to shore with clapping and pipes, bearing witness to their catch. But others hold not this, but the anthias, to be sacred. The reason is that, wherever this fish appears in the sea, that place must surely be free of beasts, and there is a truce for the fishes against everything that hunts in the water, and the fishes themselves, taking courage, spawn. But to scrutinize the secrets of Nature is not for me, and reasonably so, since a lion fears even a cock, and the basilisk fears the same, and the elephant a pig; and as for the causes, those who have much leisure, in seeking them, will despise the time spent, yet will not come at last to the end of their search.