Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 3 



that fea. Seals are very numerous in the Cafpian 

 Sea, and are even found in the fait fea of Aral, as 

 well as in the frefh-water loch of Baikal. 



In a very curious pafTage of the "Odyiley" 

 (xxiv., 6) reprehended by Plato in his " Republic," 

 the fouls in Hades are compared to bats, "which 

 fly fqueaking in the recefs of a marvellous cavern, 

 when one has fallen from the rock out of the 

 clutter," and OdyfTeus clings to the fig-tree of 

 Charybdis like a bat. 



Thus a Homeric houfehold kept the fame 

 domefticated animals as we do at prefent horfe, 

 afs, mule, meep, oxen, pigs, and goats. It is 

 fingular, when the origin of the domeftic fowl is 

 remembered (the jungle fowl of India), that fowls 

 are not named in the Homeric poems. The 

 common fuppofition that thefe birds were brought 

 weftward by the primitive Aryans, feems therefore 

 erroneous. They came through hiftoric intercourfe 

 with the Eaft, and in Homer's time there is plenty 

 of evidence to mow that this intercommunication 

 of Europe and Hindoftan had not yet begun. 



Turning to reptiles, Proteus turns himfelf into 

 them, 



offff' tTTi ydiav 

 IpTrerd yiyvovrai. Odyjfey, iv. 417. 



A dragon is one of thefe mapes. The dragon 

 (or ferpent) is reprefented as eating birds in other 

 paffages; caufmg a man to fhrink back as he 

 meets it in his path ; an augury appears of " a 

 high-flying eagle, on the left hand, dividing the 

 people, bearing a monftrous bleeding ferpent in its 



