HOTJGHTON ON AETSTOTLe's niSTOUT OF ANIMALS. 1-13 



their food in the water, aud admit and eject the water, of which if 

 they are deprived, they die, as is the case with most of the fishes ; 

 others, inasmuch as they get their food and spend their time in the 

 water, but do not admit water, but air, and produce their young out 

 of the water. There are many footed animals of this kind, as tlie 

 otter and the latax* and the erocodile,t and winged animals, as 

 the aiihyiaX and the diver,§ and footless animals, as the water-ser- 



* kvvdplg K. Xcira^. Most commentators understand by ivvSpig, the otter, 

 (Lutra vnlgaris) ; the word occurs again only in Bk. viii. 7. § 5. wliere it is men- 

 tioned with the KCKJTiop, (*' beaver"), the aaQkiJiov, the aarvpiov, and the Xdra^, 

 as a wild quadruped which gets its food about lakes and rivers ; it is described as an 

 animal that will bite a man, aud will not let go its hold till it hears the bone crack. 

 Herodotus (\\. 109) mentions tvvcpieg with "bcavevs and other square-faced animals," 

 as being taken about a large lake in the country of the Geloni or Budeni, (a Scythian 

 race, who dwelt east of the Tanais ( Don). He adds that their skins were sewn to- 

 gether as borders to cloaks. There can be no doubt that the h/vSplg of Aristotle 

 denotes the otter, for besides the general agreement of its description with this 

 animal, an additional proof may be seen in the figures of two water animals, resem- 

 bling otters, with a fish in the mouth of each, preserved iu the Lithostrotum Brixjnes- 

 tinum, or the Mosaic pavement at I'nienesti, and which have inscribed over them 

 the Greek word ENHYAPI2. The reader may see an engraving of this Mosaic 

 pavement in Shaw's Travels, 8vo. ed. ii. p. 294 ; or in the folio ed. 1738, p 2.5. 

 This writer has also [Siippl. p. 84 (fol.)] a Dissertation on this pavement, for the 

 history of which the reader may consult Montfaucon's Antiquities, vol. xiv. As to the 

 Xc'iTci^, it is impossible to come to any satisfactory conclusion with regard to its iden- 

 tity; it is mentioned again in the above-named i)assage, and is described as being 

 thicker than the kwvpig, and as having larger teeth, with which it cuts the branches 

 by the river's banks; the hair of the ^a^aa? is said to be in appearance something 

 between that of the seal and the stag. It is possible, as Pallas (Specileg. Zoolog. xiv. 

 p. 42.) has conjectured, that the latuoc has been named from an ill-observed or ill- 

 described specimen of beaver ; but may we not conjecture that some species distinct 

 from the Castor Jibcr existed in the time of Aristotle (about 2,200 years ago) which 

 has since become extinct ? This supposition is in some measure perhaps supported by 

 the circumstance that a large extinct species of Beaver coexisted at a comparatively 

 late period with the Castor Jiher, at one time a very abundant European species, 

 though now, we believe, found with modified habits, only on the banks of the 

 DaniTbe and in the neighbom-hood of the Black Sea. Remains of its gigantic con- 

 gener ((?. Trognntheritm, C\n. Tror/o)itherium Cuvicri, Fisdi.)ha\e been found at 

 Bacton and other places in Norfolk, associated in lacustrine deposits with the 

 remains of the Manmioth, Rhinoceros, Ox, Horse, Roebuck and other Deer, &c. 

 But its existence was first made known by the discoveiy of its fossil cranium on the 

 borders of the Sea of Azof. Is it therefore too extravagant to surmise that it might 

 have existed, together with the Common Beaver, in that and the neighbouring re- 

 gions of Asia down even to the time of Aristotle, and might have come within his ken, 

 either by actual observation, or, it might be, by recent traditional repute ? The word 

 XdraK etymologically points to some animal that plunges into the water with a splash. 



f See note on Crocodiles, v. 27. § 2. 



% aWvin, a word of very uncertain meaning. See note on v. 8. § 4. 



§ KoXyju/3ic, may denote some species of 'grebe'; the term as employed by 

 Athenojus (ix. p. 39.5.) with the epithet t) ixiKpd, points apparently to the ' httle 

 grebe' or " dabchick," {Podiceps minor), but Aiistotle (viii. 5. § 8.) mentions the 



probable that it is used iu no very restricted sense to denote either of the genera, 

 Poiliceps or Colymbus. 



