BOOK VIII. Lxxviii. 2I2-LXXIX. 214 



trees and plastering their behinds ^vith mud. The 

 females are fiercer when \vith young, and this is more 

 or less the same in every kind of wild animal. Male 

 boars do not mate till one year old. In IndJa they 

 have curved tusks 18 in. long: two project from the 

 jaw, and two from the forehead Hke a calfs horns. 

 The wild boar's hair is a sort of copper colour ; that 

 of the other species is black. But the hog genus does 

 not occur in Arabia. 



LXXIX. In the case of no other kind of animal is wod 

 it so easy to cross with the wild variety ; the offspring "^ltic"^ 

 of such unions in old days were called ' hybrids,' sv^cia. 

 meaning half-wild, a term also applied as a nickname 

 to human beings, for instance, to Cicero's colleague in 

 the consulship," Gaius Antonius.* But not only in pigs 

 but in all animals as well whenever there is any tame 

 varietv of a genus there is also found a wild one of the 

 same genus, inasmuch as even in the case of man an 

 equal number of savage races have been predicted 

 to exist. Nevertheless the formation of the goat is 

 transferred to a very large number of similar species : 

 there are the goat, the chamois and the ibex — an 

 animal of marvellous speed, although its head is 

 burdened with enormous horns resembling the 

 sheaths of swords, towards which it sways itself as 

 though whirled with a sort of catapult, chiefly when 

 on rocks and seeking to leap from one crag to another, 

 and by means of the recoil leaps out more nimbly 

 to the point to which it wants to get. There are 

 also the oryx, the only species according to certain 

 autliorities clothed with hair lying the wrong way, 

 towards the head, and the antelope, the white-rumped 

 antelope, the twisted-horn antelope and a great 

 many other not dissimilar species. But the former* 



voL. in. F 149 



