BOOK VIII. XIX. 48-51 



temperament, or with chance, as to this point — that 

 wild animals are placated by appeals addressed to 

 them, inasmuch as experience has not decided 

 ■«hether it be true or false that even serpents can 

 be enticed out by song and forced to submit to 

 chastisement. Lions indicate their state of mind by 

 means of their tail, as horses do by their ears : for 

 Nature has assigned even these means of expression 

 to all the noblest animals. Consequently the hon's 

 tail is motionless when he is cahn, and moves gently 

 ■vvhen he wishes to cajole — which is seldom, since 

 anger is more usual ; at the onset of which the earth 

 is lashed, and as the anger grows, his back is lashed 

 as if for a mode of incitement. A Uon's greatest 

 strength is in the chest. Black blood flows from 

 every wound, whether made by claw or tooth. Yet 

 when hons are glutted they are harmless. The hon's 

 nobihty of spirit is detected most in dangers, not 

 merely in the way that despising weapons he protects 

 himself for a long time only by intimidation, and 

 protests as it were that he is acting under compulsion, 

 and rises to the encounter not as if forced by danger 

 but as though enraged by madness ; but a nobler 

 indication of this spirit is this, that however large 

 a force of hounds and hunters besets him, in level 

 plains and where he can be seen lie retires con- 

 temptuously and constantly halting, but when he 

 has made his way into brushwood and forest he 

 proceeds at top speed, as if aware that the he of the 

 land conceals his disgrace. When pursuing he advances 

 by leaps and bounds, but he does not use this gait 

 when in flight. When lie has been wounded he 

 marks down his assailant in a marvellous way, and 

 knows him and picks him out in however large a 



39 



