CYNEGETICA, III. 160-178 



articulate," shapeless flesh,* and unjointed and 

 mysterious to behold. At one and the same time 

 she attends to mating and to the rearing of her 

 young and when she has but newly given birth she 

 couches with the male. And she licks" with her 

 tongue her dear offspring, even as cattle hck one 

 another in turn with their tongues and take delight 

 in each other ; and one of the fair-horned kine 

 rejoices in the other and they do not part till they 

 have put from them sweet desire, and they gladden 

 the heart of their attendant herdsman. So doth 

 the she Bear shape her children by licking, while 

 they whine and mumble incontinently. 



Moreover the Bear beyond all others dreads the 

 onset of winter, shaggy of hair though she be. And 

 when the snow besprinkles everything, what time 

 the stormy West Wind sheds it thickly all about, 

 she hides ** in a cave where there is shelter adequate 

 and spacious, and for lack of food she Ucks her feet * 

 and paws even as if she were milking them and 

 beguiles the craving of the belly. Even such a de\ice 

 have the coiling Poulpes^ devised in the depths of 

 the wide-wayed sea amid the waves ; who dreading 

 the chilly menace of mid-winter hide in the shelving 



Siapdpoi avTT]v jtat oiovei SiaTrXdrret ; Phil. I.e. Xedwaira 5e 

 fj.a\daKiji yXtiiTTijs irovt^. Cf. Don. Vit. Verg. -2:? non absurde 

 carmen se ursae more parere dicens et larabendo demura 

 efEngere ; Aul. Gell. xvii. 10 dicere eum solitum ferunt 

 parere se versus more ursino. Xamque ut ilia bestia fejum 

 ederet ineffigiatum informemque, lambendo id postea quod 

 ita edidisset, conformaret et fingeret, etc. 



" Cf. H. ii. -2+7 fF. ; A. 600 a 27 b 12 ; 611 b 34 ; Plin. viii. 

 126; Ael. vi. 3. 



' Cf. H. ii. 250; Plin. viii. 127 priorum pedum suctu 

 vivunt ; Ael. vi. 3 d-roxpv ^* arr-j ttjv Se^iai' TrepiXixpiacrdai. 



t Cf. H. ii. 241 ff. 



127 



