324 pliist's natubal histoet. [BookYIII. 



est stream intervenes, will tremble, and not dare so much as 

 to wet even its feet. Nor yet in their pastures will they 

 ever drink at any but the usual watering-place, and they make 

 it their care to find some dry path by which to get at it. 

 They will not pass over a bridge either, when the water can be 

 seen between the planks beneath.^ Wonderful to relate, too, 

 if their watering-places are changed, though they should be 

 ever so thirsty, they will not drink without being either beaten 

 or caressed. They ought always to have plenty of room for 

 sleeping ; for they are very subject to various diseases in their 

 sleep, when they repeatedly throw out their feet, and would 

 immediately lame themselves by coming in contact with any 

 hard substance ; so that it is necessary that they should be 

 provided with an empty space. The profit which is derived 

 from these animals exceeds that arising from the richest estate. 

 It is a well-known fact, that in Celtiberia there are some she- 

 asses which have produced to their owners as much as four hun- 

 dred thousand sesterces.^ In the rearing of she-mules it is said 

 to be particularly necessary to attend to the colour of the hair 

 of the ears and the eyelids, for, although the rest of the body 

 be all of one colour, the mule that is produced will have all the 

 colours that are found in those parts. Maecenas was the first 

 person who had the young of the ass served up at his table f^ 

 they were in those times much preferred to the onager or wild 

 ass ;^° but, since his time, the taste has gone out of fashion. 

 An ass, after witnessing the death of another ass, survives it 

 but a very short time only. 



CHAP. 69. (44.) — THE NATIJEE OF MULES,'^ AND OF OTHER BEASTS 

 OF BUEDEN. 



From the union of the male ass and- the mare a mule is pro - 



*'^ " Per raritatem eorum translucentibus fiuviis." — B. 



68 Upwards of £3200 sterling.— B. 



^ An epigram of Martial, B. xiii. Ep. 97, appears to refer to the em- 

 ployment of the young ass as an article of food. — B. The famous sausages 

 of Bologna are made, it is said, of asses' flesh. 



■'o The onager, according to Cuvier, is the same with the ass, in the wild 

 state ; it still exists in large herds in various parts of Southern Asia, and 

 is called by the Tartars, Kulan. — B. 



" Most of the circumstances here mentioned appear to have been taken 

 from Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 24 and 36 j Varro, B. ii. c. 8 ; and 

 Columella, B. vi. c. 37.— B. 



