BOOK VIII. Lxv. 162-LXV1. 165 



build is required for the Circus ; and consequently 

 though horses may be broken as two-year-olds to 

 other service, racing in the Circus does not claim 

 them before five. 



LXVI. Gestation in this genus lasts eleven months j?'"'^^" 

 and the foal is born in the twelfth month. Breeding 

 takes place as a rule in the spring equinox when 

 both animals are two-year-olds, but the progeny 

 is stronger if breeding begins at three. A stahion 

 goes on serving to the age of 33, as they are sent from 

 the race-course to the stud at 20. It is recorded 

 that a stalhon at Opus even continued to 40, only he 

 needed assistance in Ufting his fore-quarters. But 

 few animals are such unfcrtile sires as the horse ; 

 consequently intervals are allovved in breeding, 

 and nevertheless a stalHon cannot stand serving 

 fifteen times in the same year. Mares in heat 

 are cooled down by having their manes shorn ; 

 they foal yearly up to 40. It is stated that a mare 

 has Hved to 75. 



In the equine genus the pregnant female is 

 dehvered standing up ; and she loves her oflspring 

 more than all other female animals. And in fact a 

 love-poison called horse-frenzy is found in the fore- 

 head of horses at birth, the size of a dried fig, black 

 in colour, which a brood mare as soon as she has 

 dropped her foal eats up, or else she refuses to suckle 

 the foal. If anybody takes it before she gets it, 

 and keeps it, the scent drives him into madness 

 of the kind specified. If a foal loses its dam the 

 other brood mares in the same herd rear the 

 orphan. It is said that a foal is unable to reach the 

 ground with its mouth within the first three days 

 after birth. The greedier it is in drinking the deeper 



