BOOK VIII. xLi. loi-xLiii. 104 



its conqueror, it stanches the poisonous infeetion 

 with bay-leaves. 



XLII. There are thousands of points besides, ^nimauthat 



1 ,., . 1 1 1 prognosticale 



inasmuch as Nature has hkewise also bestowed upon weaiherand 



very many animals the faculty of observing the sky, '^'^^'■- 



and a variety of different modes of prognosticating 



winds, rain and storms, a subject which it would be 



an immense task to pursue, just as much so no doubt 



as the other points of aUiance between particular 



animals and human beings. For in fact animals even 



give warning of dangers in advance, not only by 



means of their entrails and internal organs, a thing 



that much intrigues a great part of mankind, but also 



by another mode of indication. When the collapse 



of a building is imminent, the mice migrate in ad- 



vance, and spiders with their webs are the first things 



to fall. Indeed auguries have constituted a science 



at Rome and have given rise to a priestly college of 



the greatest dignity. In frostbound countries the 



fox also is among the creatures beheved to give 



omens, being an animal of formidable sagacity in 



other respects ; people only cross frozen rivers and 



lakes at points where it goes or returns : it has been 



observed to put its ear to the frozen surface and to 



guess the thickness of tlie ice. XLIII. Nor are Desiructive 



there less remarkable instances of destructiveness ^^*"**- 



even in the case of contemptible animals. Marcus 



Varro states that a town in Spain was undermined 



by rabbits and one in Thessaly by moles, and that 



a tribe in Gaul was put to flight by frogs and one in 



Africa by locusts, and the inhabitants were banished 



from the island of Gyara in tJie Cyclades by mice, 



and Amynclae in Italy was completely destroyed 



* in add. Sillig. 



75 



