350 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book VIII. 



have been made to form a kind of stuff of the hair of these 

 animals ; but it is not so soft as when attached to the skin, 

 and, in consequence of the shortness of the hairs, soon falls to 

 pieces. 



CHAP. 82. (56.) ANIMALS WHICH ARE TAMED IN PART ONLY. 



Hares are seldom tamed, and yet they cannot properly be 

 called wild animals ; indeed, there are many species of them 

 which are neither tame nor wild, but of a sort of intermediate 

 nature ; of the same kind there are among the winged animals, 

 swallows and bees, and among the sea animals, the dolphin. 



(57.) Many persons have placed that inhabitant of our 

 houses, the mouse, in this class also ; an animal which is not 

 to be despised, for the portents which it has afforded, even in 

 relation to public events. Ey gnawing the silver shields at 

 Lanuvium, 39 mice prognosticated the Marsian war ; and the 

 death of our general, Carbo, at Clusium, 40 by gnawing the 

 latchets with which he fastened his shoes. 41 There are many 

 species of this animal in the territory of Cyrenaica ; some of 

 them with a wide, others with a projecting, forehead, and some 

 again with bristling hair, like the hedgehog. 43 We are in- 

 formed by Theophrastus, that after the mice had driven the 

 inhabitants of Gyara 43 from their island, they even gnawed the 

 iron; which they also do, by a kind of natural instinct, in the 

 iron forges among the Chalybes. In gold mines, too, their 



39 This is referred to by Cicero, in his treatise, De Divinatione, B. i. c. 

 44, and B. ii. c. 27 ; in the latter he treats it as an idle tale. B. 



40 See B, iii. c. 8. 



41 C. Papirius Carbo, a contemporary and friend of the Gracchi. In 

 B.C. 119, the orator, Licinius Crassus, brought a charge against him, the 

 nature of which is not known ; but Carbo put an end to his life, by taking 

 cantharides. 



42 These different species are thus characterized by Cuvier : " Les pre- 

 miers sont les souris et les rats, de formes ordinaires ; les seconds, les 

 grandes musaraignes [shrew-mice] de la taille du rat, telles que Ton en 

 trouve en Egypte ; les troisiemes, une espece de souris particuliere a 

 1'Egypte, et peut-etre a la Barbaric, armee d'epines parmi ses poils dont 

 Aristote avait deja parle (B. vi. 1. 37, cap. ult.) et que M. Geoffrey a re- 

 trouvee et nominee mus cahirinus." Ajasson, vol. vi. p. 467, and Le- 

 maire, ubi supra. B. See B. viii. c. 55, and B. x. c. 85. 



43 JElian, Hist. Anim. B. v. c. 11, mentions this circumstance, but says 

 that it occurred in the island of Paros. For Gyara, see B. iv. c. 23. 



