BOOK XT. xLiv. i2i-.\Lv. 124 



Gallic word alauda and gave that name also to the 

 legion " so entitled. We have also said * which 

 bird has been endowed by nature with a folding 

 crest. Nature has also bestowed a crest that slopes 

 backwards from the beak down the middle of the 

 neck on the coot species, and also a tufted crest on 

 Mars's woodpecker'' and on the Balearic crane, but 

 she has given the most distinguished decoration to 

 the poultry-cock — its fleshy, notched comb ; and this 

 cannot rightly be described as flesh or gristle or hard 

 skin, but is a gift pecuhar to it : for no one can be 

 found who has ever seen serpents' crests. 



XLV^ Many of the water and niarine and snake Homs. 

 species are furnished in various ways with horns of a 

 sort, but horns in the proper sense of the term only 

 belong to the genus quadrupeds ; for I deem the 

 story of Actaeon,'' '^ and also that of Cipus ^* in the 

 history of Latium, to be fabulous. And in no other 

 field does nature allow herself more sport ; with the 

 weapons of animals she has made a game — dividing 

 some into branches, for instance, the hoi-ns of stags ; 

 assigning simple horns to others, for instance, the 

 species in the same genus called from this feature 

 ' flute-stags,' ^ spreading those of others into pahiis 

 and making fingers shoot out from these, the origin 

 of the designation ' broad-horn.' To goats she has 

 given branching but small horns, and these she has 

 not made to be shed ; to the ram class horns twisted 

 into a crooked shape, as if providing them with 

 weighted gauntlets for boxing ; to bulls horns for 

 attacking — in this class indeed she has also bestowed 

 horns on the females, although in many she only 

 gives them to the males ; to chamois horns curved 

 over the back, to antelopes horns curved the opposite 



509 



