216 THE HISTOBY OF ANIMALS. JJB. VIII. 



invisible, but moves about and is awake. A pregnant bear 

 has either never or very rarely been captured ; and it is 

 quite plain that they eat nothing during the whole of this 

 period ; for they never come out ; and if they are captured, 

 their stomach and entrails appear to be empty ; and it is 

 said that, because nothing is presented to it, the intestine 

 sometimes adheres to itself; and, therefore, at their first 

 emergence, they eat the arum, in order to open the entrail 

 and make a passage through it. 



2. The dormouse hybernates in trees and is then very 

 fat, and the white Pontic mouse. (Some hybernating 

 animals cast their old age, as it is called. This is the outer 

 skin and the coverings at the period of birth.) It has al- 

 ready been observed, that among viviparous animals with 

 feet there is some doubt as to the cause of the hybernation 

 of bears ; but almost all animals with scales hybernate and 

 cast their old age ; that is, all that have a soft skin and no 

 shell, as the tortoise ; for both the tortoise and the emys 

 belong to the class of animals with scales ; but all such as 

 the gecko, lizard, and especially the serpents, cast their 

 skins ; for they do this both in the spring, when they first 

 emerge, and again in the autumn. 



3. The viper also casts its skin both in the spring and 

 autumn, and is not, as some persons say, the only serpent 

 that does not cast its skin. "When serpents begin to cast 

 their skin, it is first of all separated from their eyes ; and to 

 those who do not know what is about to happen they appear 

 to be blind. After this it is separated from the head, for 

 first of all it appears entirely white. In a night and day 

 the whole of the old skin is separated from the commence- 

 ment at the head to the tail ; and when cast it is turned in- 

 side out, for the serpent emerges as the infant does from 

 the chorion. 



4. Insects which cast their skins do it in the same way as 

 the silpha, empis, and the coleoptera, as the beetle. All 

 creatures cast it after birth ; for in viviparous animals the 

 chorion is separated, and in the vermiparous, as bees and 

 locusts, they emerge from a case. The grasshoppers, when 

 they cast their skins, sit upon olives and reeds. When the 

 case is ruptured, they emerge, and leave a little fluid behind 

 them, and after a short time they fly away and sing. 



