CYNEGETICA, II. 556-572 



the Elephant ° strong though it be and many a time 

 lays so mighty a beast dead in the dust. On his 

 yellowish,* hairy brows and on his back dense 

 sjKJts show darkly. All the breed are males and a 

 female is never seen. Whence they come I know not, 

 but I speak as I have learnt, whether this deadly race 

 springs from the rock or whether they are children 

 of the soil and spring from the ground, or whether 

 the Avild monsters are begotten of one another, 

 without desire and without mating and without 

 birth. Even in the wet depths of the sea with its 

 watery ways there are tribes which come into being 

 self-made and motherless •= — Oysters and feeble Fry 

 and the races of Sea-snails and Testacea and Spiral- 

 shells and all that grow in the sands. 



Dear Muse, it is not meet for me to sing of small 

 creatures. Leave thou the feeble beasts which have 

 no strength in them — the grey-eyed Panthers <* and 



list is unintelligible. If 6(rrpa/ca = 6crrpa«r65e/)yxa, then the 

 term is either equivalent to or includes dcrrpea (according 

 as that word is used in a wider or narrower sense), as it also 

 includes kox^oi (A. 5-27 b 35 to. ocrTpaKoOtpfia rdiv ^t^wv, olov . . . 

 oi KoX'Xot Acai TtavTa to. KaXovfxfva dffrpea) and dTpofx^oi, whether 

 that term be specific or generic («.«. = Td ffrpou^wdri) — in 

 which case it includes kox^oi (A. 5-28 a 10 6 koxXos Kal 

 rdXXa to. (rrpo/x/3ui57; ; cf. P. A. 679 b 14). If we ventured 

 to substitute, for tarpta, Kearpewv or Kearpea (for the 

 spontaneous generation of which cf. A. 543 b 17, 569a 17 

 etc. ; Athen. 306 f) and, for 6<rTpaKa, iarpea, we should 

 get a more intelligible text. 



■* See C iii. 63 n. Clearly to Oppian irdvd-np denotes a 

 smaller animal than xopSaXts. According to Wiegmann (in 

 Oken's IgLt ( 1831), pp. -28-2 ff.) TaveTip- Felis uncia, the Ounce 

 or Snow Leopard. It is confined to the highlands of 

 Central Asia ; cf. Plin. viii. 63 Nunc varias et pardos, qua 

 mares sunt, appellant in eo omni genere creberrimo in 

 Africa Syriaque. Quidam ab his pantheras candore solo 

 discernunt, nee adhuc aliam differentiam inveni ; A. -280 a 25. 



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