BOOK X. xciii. 200-xcv. 203 



and consequently salt is specially suitable for them. 

 So also do beasts of burden, although they also 

 fatten on corn and grass ; in fact they eat in 

 proportion to what they have drunk. Beside the 

 ruminants already mentioned, of foi'est animals stags 

 ruminate when they are kept by us ; but they all 

 ruminate lying down in preference to standing, and 

 in Minter more than in summer, for a period of about 

 seven months. The mice of Pontus " also remasticate 

 their food in a similar manner. 



XCIV. In drinking, animals with serrated teeth Modesoj 

 lap, and so does our common mouse, though it '^""**"^- 

 really belongs to another class ; those with teeth 

 that touch suck, for instance horses and cattle ; 

 bears do neither, but gulp water as well as food in 

 bites. In Africa the greater part of the wild animals 

 do not drink at all in summer, owing to lack of 

 rains for which reason Libyan mice in captivity 

 die if given drink. The pei-petually dry pai-ts of 

 Africa produce the antelope, which owing to the 

 nature of the region goes without drink in quite a 

 remarkable fashion, for the assistance of thirsty 

 people, as the Gaetulian brigands rely on their 

 help to keep going, bladders containing extremely 

 healthy liquid being found in their body. 



In Africa also leopards crouch in the thick foliage Feline 

 of the trees and hidden by their boughs leap down ^tamiw. 

 on to animals passing by, and stalk their prey from 

 the perches of birds. Then how silently and with 

 what a hght tread do cats creep up to birds ! how 

 stealthily they watch their chance to leap out on 

 tiny mice ! They scrape up the earth to bury their 

 droppings, realizing that the smell of these gives 

 them away. XCV. Consequently it is easily manifest 



421 



