HALIEUTICA, I. 675-700 



they were going through the changing circle of a 

 mazy dance ; behind and not aloof their children 

 come the parents great and splendid, a guardian 

 host, even as in spring the shepherds attend the 

 tender lambs at pasture. As when from the works 

 of the Muses " children come trooping while behind 

 there follow, to watch them and to be censors of 

 modesty and heart and mind, men of older years : 

 for age makes a man discreet ; even so also the 

 parent Dolphins attend their children, lest aught 

 untoward encounter them. 



Yea and the Seal also tends her young no less well ; 

 for she too has breasts, and in the breasts streams of 

 milk.* But not amid the waves but when she comes 

 up on the dry land " is she delivered of the burden 

 of her womb in seasonable travail. For twelve days- 

 in all she remains with her children there upon the 

 dry land ; but with the thirteenth <* dawn she takes 

 in her arms her young cubs and goes do^\■n into the 

 sea, glorying in her children and sho^\•ing them, as 

 it were, their fatherland. Even as a woman that has 

 borne a child in an alien land comes gladly to her 

 fatherland and to her own home ; and all day long 

 she carries her child in her arms and hugs him while 

 she shows him the house, his mother's home, A\ith 

 sateless delight ; and he, though he does not under- 

 stand, gazes at each thing, the hall and the haiuits 

 of his parents ; even so that wild thing of the sea 



* A. 567 a 2 fiacrrois d' exfi Svo kclI ^Xdfirrot inrb tQp riKPup 

 Kaddirep rd rerpaxoSa; Plin. ix. 41. 



' A. 566 b 28 tIktu ev rg -yj fiiv, xpin aiyuiXoii 5e ; Ael. 

 ix. 9; Plin. ix. 41. 



'' A. 567 a 5 &yei Se irepl dcadeKaToid ivra to. riKva. eis ttjv 

 OiXaTTav iro\\d«:ti riji ijfjuipas, awtOil^ovaa kolto. (ukdop ; Plin. 

 I.e. : Ael. l.c. 



T 273 



