BOOK VIII. XII. 34-xiv. 37 



themselves in rivers and lie in wait for the elephants 

 when drinking, and rising up coil round the trunk 

 and imprint a bite inside the ear, because that place 

 only cannot be protected by the trunk ; and that the 

 snakes are so large that they can hold the whole of 

 an elephant's blood, and so they drink the elephants 

 dry, and these when drained collapse in a heap and 

 the serpents being intoxicated are crushed by them 

 and die with them. 



XIII. Ethiopia produces elephants that rival those The African 

 of India, being 30 ft. high ; the only surprising thing ^*^""' • 



is what led Juba to beUeve them to be crested. The 

 liithiopian tribe in whose country they .are chiefly 

 bred are called the Asachaeans ; it is stated that in 

 the coast districts belonging to this tribe the elephants 

 Hnk themselves four or five together into a sort of 

 raft and holding up their heads to sei've as sails are 

 carried on the waves to the better pastures of 

 Arabia. 



XIV. Megasthenes writes that in India snakes s^mkesof 

 grow so large as to be able to swallow stags and bulls ^^'Jp'»""'»' 

 whole ; and Metrodorus that in the neighbourhood 



of the river Rhyndacus in Pontus they catch and 

 gulp down birds passing over them even though they 

 are flying high and fast. There is the well-known 

 case of the snake 120 ft. long that was killed during 

 the Punic Wars on the River Bagradas" by General 

 Regulus, using ordnance and catapults just as if 

 storming a town ; its skin and jaw-bones remained 

 in a temple at Rome down to the Niunantine War.* 

 CredibiUty attaches to these stories on account of 

 the serpents in Italy called boas, which reach such 

 dimensions that during the principate of Claudius 

 of blessed memory a whole child was found in the 



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