226 THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS. [E. VIII. 



and four fingers, and some of them bring their ears down 

 to the ground : and the oxen, like the camels, have a mane 

 upon the point of the shoulder. In Lycia the goats are 

 shorn as the sheep are in other places. 



4. In Libya the horned rams are born at once with horns, 

 and not the males only, as Homer says, but all the rest also. 

 In the part of Scythia near the Pontus, the contrary is the 

 ease, for they are born without horns. And in Egypt some 

 of the cattle, as the oxen and sheep, are larger than in 

 Greece, and others are smaller, as the dogs, wolves, hares, 

 foxes, ravens, and hawks. Others are nearly of the same 

 size, as the crows and goats. This difference originates in 

 the food which is abundant for some, and scarce for others. 

 For the wolves, hawks, and carnivorous creatures food is 

 scarce, for there are but few small birds. For the dasypus 

 and others which are not carnivorous, neither the hard nor 

 soft fruits are of any long continuance. 



5 The temperature is also very influential ; for in Illy- 

 ria, Thrace, and Epirus, the asses are small. In Scythia, 

 and Celtic countries, they do not occur at all, for in these 

 places the winter is severe. In Arabia the lizards are more 

 than a cubit long, and the mice are much larger than those 

 which inhabit our fields, their fore legs being a span long, 

 and their hind legs as long as from the first joint of the 

 finger .... 



6. In Libya, the serpents, as it has been already remarked, 

 are very large. For some persons say that as they sailed 

 along the coast, they saw the bones of many oxen, and that 

 it was evident to them that they had been devoured by the 

 serpents. And as the ships passed on, the serpents attacked 

 the triremes, and some of them threw themselves upon one 

 of the triremes and overturned it. There are more lions in 

 Europe, and especially in the country between the Ache- 

 lous and the Nessus. In Asia there are leopards which 

 are not found in Europe. 



7. On the whole, the wild animals of Asia are the fiercest, 

 those of Europe the boldest, and those of Libya the most 

 varied in form ; and it has passed into a proverb that Libya 

 is always producing something new. For the want of 

 water brings many heterogeneous animals together at the 

 drinking places, where they copulate and produce young, if 



