BOOK XI. xc. 22I-XCI. 225 



and when shed it draws the breath with it ; but it has 

 no sense of touch. The animals with denser blood 

 are braver, those with thinner blood wiser, and those 

 with very Httle blood, or none at all, more timid. 

 The blood of buUs coagulates and hardens most 

 quickly (and consequently is noxious to drink) ; 

 that of boars next quickly, but that of stags and 

 goats and antelopes does not thicken at all. Asses 

 have the thickest blood and man the thinnest. 

 Species with more than four feet have no blood. Fat 

 animals have a smaller supply of blood, because it is 

 used up in the fat. In the human race alone a flux 

 of blood occurs in the males, in some cases at one of 

 the nostrils, in others at both, with some people 

 through the lower organs, with many through the 

 mouth ; it may occur at a fixed pei'iod, as recently 

 with a man of praetorian rank named Macrinus 

 Viscus, and every year with the City Prefect Volusius 

 Saturninus, who actually Hved to be over 90. This 

 alone of the bodily affections experiences an 

 occasional increase, inasmuch as sacrificial victims 

 bleed more copiously if they have previously 

 drunk. 



XCI. Those animals which we liave specified" as variaimis 

 going into hiding at fixed seasons have not any blood "/yppiy^f"^' 

 at those periods except quite scanty drops in the 

 neighbourhood of the heart, by a marvellous con- 

 trivance of nature, just as in man she causes the blood- 

 supply to alter at tlie smallest impulses, the blood 

 not only being sufFused with less matter by sleep but 

 at each separate state of mind, by shame, anger, and 

 fear, there being various ways of turning pale, and also 

 of blushing — as the blush of anger is different from 

 that of modesty. For it is certain that in fear the 



573 



