BOOK VIII. XL. 96-xi.i. 99 



comes ashore to reconnoitre places where rushes 

 have recently been cut, and where it sees an extremely 

 sharp stalk it squeezes its body down on to it and 

 makes a wound in a certain vein in its leg, and by thus 

 letting blood unburdens its body, which would 

 othervvise be Uable to disease, and plasters up the 

 wouT^-d again with mud. 



XLl. A somewhat similar display has also been otker speeies 

 made in the same country of Egypt by the bird called cures^'''^^'^ 

 the ibis, which makes use of the curve of its beak to 

 purge itself through the part by wliich it is most 

 conducive to health for the heavy residue of foodstuffs 

 to be excreted. Nor is the ibis alone, but many 

 animals have made discoveries destined to be useful 

 for man as well. The value of the herb dittany for 

 extracting arrows was shown by stags when wounded 

 by that weapon and ejecting it by grazing on that 

 herb ; likewise stags when bitten by the phalangium, 

 a kind of spider, or any similar animal cure themselves 

 by eating crabs. There is also a herb that is par- 

 ticularly good for snake-bites, with which hzards 

 heal themselves whenever they fight a battle with 

 snakes and are wounded. Celandine was shoAvn 

 to be very healthy for the sight by swallows using it 

 as a medicine for their chicks' sore eyes. The 

 tortoise eats cimila ", called ox-grass, to restore its 

 strength against the effect of snake-bites ; the weasel 

 cures itself with rue when it has had a fight with 

 mice in hunting them. The stork drugs itself with 

 marjoram in sickness, and goats use ivy and a 

 diet consisting mostly of crabs thrown up from the 

 sea. When a snake's body gets covered with a skin 

 owing to its winter inactivity it sloughs this hindrance 

 to its movement by means of fennel-sap and comes 



71 



