262 plixt's natural history. [Book VIII. 



serpent one hundred and twenty feet in length was taken by the 

 Roman army under Eegulus, being besieged, like a fortress, by 

 means of baHstae and other engines of war.^^ Its skin and jaws 

 were preserved in a temple at Rome, down to the time of the 

 Xumantine war. The serpents which in Italy are known by 

 the name of boa, render these accounts far from incredible, for 

 they grow to such a vast size, that a child was found entire 

 in the stomach of one of them, which was killed on the Yati- 

 canian Hill during the reign of the Emperor Claudius." These 

 are nourished, in the first instance, with the milk of the cow, 

 and from this they take their name.^ As to the other animals, 

 which have been of late repeatedly brought to Italy from all 

 parts of the world, it is quite unnecessarj- to give any minute 

 account of their form. 



CHAP. 15. (15.) — THE AN'IMALS OF SCYTHIA ; THE BIS0>'. 



Scythia produces but very few animals, in consequence of 

 the scarcity of shrubs. Germany, which lies close adjoining 

 it, has not many animals, though it has some very fine kinds 

 of wild oxen : the bison, which has a mane, and the urus,^ 



^^ This is referred to bj" many ancient Avriters ; among others, by Liry, 

 B. xviii. ; Florus, B. ii. c. 2 ; Valerius Maximus, B. i. c. 8 ; and Aulus 

 GelUus, B. vi. c. 3.— B. 



^"- As Cuvier remarks, it is difficult to conceive what he means by the 

 boa of Italy. At the present day, the longest Italian serpents are the 

 Jilsculapian serpent (a harmless animal), and the " Coluber qnadrilineatus " 

 of Linnseus, neither of which exceeds ten feet lq lengtli. The one here 

 mentioned, was probably, as Cuvier suggests, one of the genuine boa or 

 python species ; but, as he says, where did it come from } and how did it 

 get there r 



^•^ It is doubtful whether any one ever witnessed a serpent sucking a cow, 

 but it seems to have been generally believed, and it is therefore probable, 

 that the name of the animal was derived from this circumstance. — B. It 

 is still believed of the common snake in some parts of this country. The 

 reading " primo" has been preferred to *' trimo," that adopted by Sillig. 



^ Cuvier remarks upon the two animals here mentioned, the bison and 

 tbe urus, that Europe, at the present time, contains only one species of wild 

 ox, tbe bison, or aurochs of the Germans, which still exists, although in 

 small numbers only, in the forests of Lithuania. There are, however, fossil 

 remains, in different parts of the north of Europe, of other animals of the 

 same genus, which may have been the urus of Pliny, and not extinct when 

 he wrote. Ajassou, vol. vi. pp. 413, 414; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 365. The 

 description by Csesar of the urus of Gaul, Bell. Gall. B. vi. c. 26, seems 

 to agree with the remains of the fossil animal, and may, therefore, be con- 



