294 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book VIII. 



tinue to fight long after its intestines have been dragged out of 

 its body. 



When an elephant has happened to devour a chameleon, 

 which is of the same colour with the herbage, it counteracts 

 this poison by means of the wild olive. Bears, when they 

 have eaten of the fruit of the mandrake, lick up numbers of 

 ants. 18 The stag counteracts the effect of poisonous plants by 

 eating the artichoke. Wood-pigeons, jackdaws, blackbirds, 

 and partridges, purge themselves once a year by eating bay 

 leaves ; pigeons, turtle-doves, and poultry, with wall-pellitory, 

 or helxine ; ducks, geese, and other aquatic birds, with the 

 plant sideritis or vervain ; cranes, and birds of a similar nature, 

 with the bulrush. The raven, when it has killed a chame- 

 leon, a contest in which even the conqueror suffers, counter- 

 acts the poison by means of laurel. 



CHAP. 42. (28.) PROGNOSTICS OF DANGER DERIVED FROM 

 ANIMALS. 



There are a thousand other facts of this kind: and the 

 same Nature has also bestowed upon many animals as well, 

 the faculty of observing the heavens, and of presaging the 

 winds, rains, and tempests, each in its own peculiar way. It 

 would be an endless labour to enumerate them all ; just as 

 much as it would be to point out the relation of each to man. 19 

 For, in fact, they warn us of danger, not only by their fibres 

 and their entrails, to which a large portion of mankind attach 

 the greatest faith, but by other kinds of warnings as well. 

 When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it 20 

 before-hand, and the spiders with their webs are the first to 

 drop. Divination from birds has been made a science among 

 the Romans, and the college of its priests is looked upon as 

 peculiarly sacred. 21 In Thrace, when all parts are covered 



13 This is again referred to, B. xxix. c. 39. B. 



"^Quod persequi immensum est aeque scilicet quam reliquam cum 

 singulis hominum societatem." The meaning of this passage is obscure, 

 and extremely doubtful. 



20 This is alluded to by Cicero in his letters to Atticus, and is mentioned 

 by JEUian, Anim. Nat. B. vi. c. 41 ; B. xi. c. 19 ; and Var. Hist. B.i. 

 c. 11. B. The same is still said of rats, whence our expression "to rat," 

 t. e. to desert a falling cause. 



11 The priests of this college, or augurs, were among the most important 

 public functionaries in the Roman state, both from the rank of the indivi- 



