Cliap. 53.] MAEYELLO US FACTS CONNECTED WITH ANIMALS. 469 
CHAP. 52. PECULIARITIES EELATIVE TO CERTAIN ANIMALS. 
In addition to these, there are some other peculiar properties 
attributed to certain animals, which require to be mentioned in 
the present Eook. Some authors state that there is a bird in 
Sardinia, resembling the crane and called the gromphena 
but it is no longer known even by the people of that country, 
in my opinion. In the same province, too, there is the ophion, 
an animal which resembles the deer in the hair only, and to be 
found^^ nowhere else. The same authors have spoken also of 
the subjugus,"^ but have omitted to state what animal it is, 
or where it is to be found. That it did formerly exist, however, 
I have no doubt, as certain remedies are described as being 
derived from it. M. Cicero speaks of animals called '^biuri,"^^ 
which gnaw the vines in Campania. 
CHAP. 53. (16.) OTHER MARVELLOUS FACTS CONNECTED WITH 
ANIMALS. 
There are still some other marvellous facts related, with 
reference to the animals which we have mentioned. A dog 
will not bark at a person who has any part of the secundines 
of a bitch about him, or a hare's dung or fur. The kind of 
gnats called muliones,"^^ do not live more than a single day. 
Persons when taking honey from the hives, will never be 
touched by the bees if they carry the beak of a wood-pecker^^ 
about them. Swine will be sure to follow the person who has 
given them a raven's brains, made up into a bolus. The dust 
in which a she-mule has wallowed, sprinkled upon^the body, 
will allay the flames of desire. Eats may be put to flight by 
castrating a male rat, and setting it at liberty. If a snake's 
slough is beaten up with some spelt, salt, and wild thyme, and 
introduced into the throat of oxen, with wine, at the time 
that grapes are ripening, they will be in perfect health for a 
whole year to come : the same, too, if three young swallowu are 
given to them, made up into three boluses. The dust gathered 
from the track of a snake, sprinkled among bees, will make 
SI Possibly a kind of crane. 
82 See B, viii. c. 75, and B. xxviii. c. 42. 
S3 It has not been identified. 
s* Hardouin thinks that the worm called by the Greeks is meant. 
Ovid speaks in his Fasti, B. i. 11. 354 — 360, of the goat, as being very fond 
of gnawing the vine. ^ge B, ^i. c. 19. «6 g^g x. c. 20. 
