BOOK VIII, Lx\"vi. 203-Lxxvii. 206 



can in the daytime, and that consequently a diet of 

 goat's liver restores twihght sight to persons sufFering 

 from what is called night-bhndness. In Cilicia and 

 the Syrtes region people wear clothes made of hair 

 shorn from goats. They say that she-goats in the 

 pastures when the sun is setting do not look at one 

 another but He down with their backs to each other, 

 though at other times of the day they lie facing each 

 other and take notice of one another. From the 

 chin of all goats hangs a tuft of hair called their 

 beard. If you grasp a she-goat by this and drag her 

 out of the herd the others look on in amazement ; 

 this also happens as well when one of them nibbles a 

 particular plant. Their bite kills a tree ; they make 

 an ohve tree barren even by licking it, and for this 

 reason they are not offered in sacrifice to Minerva. 



LXXVII. Swine are allowed to breed from the Sinne- 

 beginning of spring to the vernal equinox, beginning piy!^"fpi>!(7. 

 at seven months old and in some places even at three inteiHgence 

 months, and continuing to their eighth year. Sows 'oressiiig 0/ 

 bear twice a year, can-ying their pigs four months : ^*"- 

 htters number up to 20, but sows cannot rear so 

 many. Nigidius states that for ten days at mid- 

 winter pigs are born with the teeth ah-eady grown. 

 Sows are impregnated by one couphng, which is also 

 repeated because they are so hable to abortion ; 

 the remedy is not to allow couphng at the first heat 

 or before the ears are pendulous. Hogs cannot 

 serve when over three years old. Sows exhausted 

 by age couple lying down ; it is nothing out of the 

 way for them to eat their htter. A pig is suitable for 

 sacrifice four days after birth, a lamb in a week and a 

 calf in a month. Coruncanius asserted that ruminant 

 animals are not acceptable as victims before they grow 



143 



