274 THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS. [B. II. 



tains, and make a circle of their dung round the place, as it 

 were a fortification, for this animal ejects a large quantity 

 of this excrement. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



OF all wild animals the elephant is the most tame and 

 gentle; for many of them are capable of instruction and 

 intelligence, and they have been taught to worship the king. 

 It is a very sensitive creature, and abounding in intellect. 

 The male never again touches a female that he has once 

 impregnated. Some persons say that the elephant will live 

 for two hundred years, others an hundred and twenty, and 

 the female lives nearly as long as the male. They arrive at 

 perfection when sixty years old. They bear winter and cold 

 weather very badly. It is an animal that lives in the neigh- 

 bourhood of rivers, though not in them. It can also walk 

 through rivers, and will advance as long as it can keep its 

 proboscis above the surface ; for it blows and breathes 

 through this organ, but it cannot swim on account of the 

 weight of its body. 



CHAPTER XXXIY. 



CAMELS refuse to have sexual intercourse with their dams, 

 even when forced ; for once a camel driver, who was in 

 want of a male camel, veiled the dam and introduced her 

 young to her. "When the covering fell off in the act of 

 copulation, he finished what he was about, and soon after- 

 wards bit the camel driver to death. It is said also that the 

 king of Scythia had an excellent mare, which always pro- 

 duced good colts. He wished to have a colt out of the mare 

 by the best of these horses, and introduced him for copula- 

 tion, but he would not do it. When she was covered up, 

 however, he performed the act unwittingly. As soon as the 

 form of the mare was shown after copulation, and the horse 

 saw what was done, he ran away and threw himself down a 

 precipice. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



1. AMONG marine animals there are many instances re- 

 ported of the mild, gentle disposition of the dolphin, and of 

 its love of its children, and its affection, in the neighbourhood 



