CURIOUS CREATURES. 161 



their own medical attainments as described by Pliny. 

 " The hippopotamus has even been our instructor in one 

 of the operations of medicine. When the animal has 

 become too bulky, by continued overfeeding, it goes 

 down to the banks of the river, and examines the reeds 

 which have been newly cut ; as soon as it has found a 

 stump that is very sharp, it presses its body against it, 

 and so wounds one of the veins in the thigh ; and by 

 the flow of blood thus produced, the body, which would 

 otherwise have fallen into a morbid state, is relieved ; 

 after which, it covers up the wound with mud. 



" The bird, also, which is called the Ibis, a native of 

 the same country of Egypt, has shewn us some things 

 of a similar nature. By means of its hooked beak, it 

 laves the body through that part by which it is especially 

 necessary for health, that the residuous food should be 

 discharged. Nor, indeed, are these the only inventions 

 which have been borrowed from animals to prove of use 

 to man. The power of the herb dittany, in extracting 

 arrows, was first disclosed to us by stags that had been 

 struck by that weapon ; the weapon being discharged 

 on their feeding upon this plant. The same animals, 

 too, when they happen to have been wounded by the 

 phalangium, a species of spider, or by any insect of a 

 similar nature, cure themselves by eating crabs. One 

 of the very best remedies for the bite of the serpent, is 

 the plant with which lizards treat their wounds when 

 injured in fighting with each other. The swallow has 

 shown us that the chelidonia is very serviceable to the 

 sight, by the fact of its employing it for the cure of its 

 young, when their eyes are affected. The tortoise 

 recruits its powers of effectually resisting serpents by 

 eating the plant which is known as cunile bubula ; and 



