44 pliny's natural history. [Book XI. 



CHAP. 45. THE VARIOUS KINDS OP HORNS. ANIMALS IN WHICH 



THET ARE MOVEABLE. 



Horns, too, of various forms have been granted to many- 

 animals of the aquatic, marine, and reptile kind, but those 

 which are more properly understood under that name belong 

 to the quadrupeds only ; for I look upon the tales of Actseon 

 and of Cippus even, in Latin story, as nothing more nor less than 

 fables. 65 And, indeed, in no department of her works has 

 Mature displayed a greater capriciousness. In providing ani- 

 mals with these weapons, she has made merry at their ex- 

 pense ; for some she has spread them out in branches, the 

 stag, for instance ; to others she has given them in a more 

 simple form, as in the " subulo," so called from the resem- 

 blance of its horns to a " subula," 66 or shoemaker's awl. In 

 others, again, she has flattened them in the shape of a man's 

 hand, with the fingers extended, from which circumstance the 

 animal has received the name of " platyceros." 67 To the roe- 

 buck she has given branching horns, but small, and has made 

 them so as not to fall off and be cast each year ; while to the 

 ram she has given them of a contorted and spiral form, as 

 though she were providing it with a csestus for offence. The 

 horns of the bull, again, are upright and threatening. In this 

 last kind, the females, too, are provided with them, while in 

 most it is only the males. The chamois has them, curving 

 backwards ; while in the fallow deer 68 they bend forward. 

 The strepsiceros, 69 which in Africa bears the name of addax, has 

 horns erect and spiral, grooved and tapering to a sharp point, 

 so much so, that you would almost take them to be the sides 

 of a lyre. 69 * In the oxen of Phrygia, the horns are moveable, 70 



65 The suddenness of their appearance, no doubt, was fabulous ; but we 

 have well-authenticated cases in recent times of substances growing on the 

 human head, to all appearance resembling horns, and arising from a dis- 

 ordered secretion of the hair. Witness the case of Mary Davies, a so- 

 called horn from whose head is preserved in the Ashmolean Museum at 

 Oxford. The story of Genucius Cippus, the Eoman praetor, is told by 

 Ovid, Met. B. xv. 1. 565, et seq. 



66 A spitter, or second year stag, according to Cuvier. 



67 " Broad-horned." The Cervus dama of Linnaeus. 



63 " Dama." The Antelope redunca of Linnaeus, Cuvier thinks. 



69 No doubt a kind of antelope. 



69* u Lyras" seems preferable to "liras." 



70 There are several varieties of oxen, in which the horns adhere to the 

 skin, and not to the cranium. 



