BOOK VIII. Li. I22-LIII. 125 



red and white. VVhen dead it is of a palHd colour. 

 It has flesh on the head and jaws and at the junction 

 of the tail in a rather scanty amount, and nowhere 

 else in the whole body ; blood in the heart and 

 around the eyes only ; its vital parts contain no 

 spleen. It hibernates hke a lizard in the winter 

 months. 



LII. The reindeer of Scythia also changes its TherHndeen 

 colours, but none other of the fur-clad animals does [^hangesof 

 so except the Indian wolf, which is reported to have <:oIout. 

 a mane on the neck. For the jackal — which is a kind 

 of wolf, longer in the body and differing in the 

 shortness of the legs, quick in its spring, Uving by 

 hunting, harmless to man — changes its raiment 

 though not its colour, being shaggy through the 

 winter but naked in summer. The reindeer is the 

 size of an ox ; its head is larger than that of a stag 

 but not unUke it; it has branching horns, cloven 

 hooves, and a fleece as shaggy as a bear's but, when 

 it happens to be self-coloured, resembhng an ass's 

 coat. The hide is so hard that they use it for making 

 cuirasses. When alarmed it imitates the colours of 

 all the trees, bushes and flowers and places where it 

 lurks," and consequently is rarely caught. It would 

 be surprising that its body has such variety of charac- 

 ter, but it is more sui-prising that even its fleece has. 



LIII. The porcupine is a native of India and Africa. The 

 It is covered with a prickly skin of the hedgehogs' ?""'<^"P"^- 

 kind, but the spines of the porcupine are longer and 

 they dart out when it draws the skin tight : it pierces 

 the mouths of hounds when they close with it, and 

 shoots out at them when further ofF. In the winter 

 months it hibernates, as is the nature of many animals 

 and before all of bears. 



89 



