BOOK VIII. xLiii. 104-XLV. 107 



by snakes. North of the Ethiopic tribe of the 

 Bitch-milkers there is a wide belt of desert where 

 a tribe was wiped out by scorpions and poisonous 

 spiders, and Theophrastus states that the Rhoetienses 

 were driven away by a kind of centipede. 



But let us return to the remaining kinds of wild 

 animals. 



XLIV. The hyena is popularly beHeved to be Thehyena. 

 bi-sexual and to become male and female in alternate 

 years, the female bearing ofFspring without a male ; 

 but this is denied by Aristotle. Its neck stretches 

 right along the backbone hke a mane, and cannot 

 bend without the whole body turning round. A 

 number of other remarkable facts about it are 

 reported, but the most remarkable are that among 

 the shepherds' homesteads it simulates human 

 speech, and picks up the name of one of them 

 so as to call him to come out of doors and tear him 

 in pieces, and also that it imitates a person being 

 sick, to attract the dogs so that it may attack them ; 

 that this animal alone digs up graves in search of 

 corpses ; that a female is seldom caught ; that its 

 eyes have a thousand variations and alterations of 

 colour; moreover that when its shadow falls on 

 dogs they are struck dumb ; and that it has certain 

 magic arts by which it causes every animal at which 

 it gazes three times to stand rooted to the spot. 

 XLV. When crossed with this race of animals the nyerm. 

 Ethiopian lioness gives birth to the corocotta," that '^y^"^' 

 mimics the voices of men and cattle in a similar way. 

 It has an unbroken ridge of bone in each jaw, forming 

 a continuous tooth without any gum, which to 

 prevent its being blunted by contact with the 

 opposite jaw is shut up in a sort of case. Juba states 



77 



