Chap. 47.3 
BEAVEES. 
297 
corocotta is produced, which has the same faculty of imitating 
the voices of men and cattle. Its gaze is always fixed and 
immoveable ; it has no gums in either of its jaws, and the 
teeth are one continuous piece of bone ; they are enclosed in a 
sort of box as it were, that they may not be blunted by rub- 
bing against each other. Juba informs us, that the mantichora 
of ^Ethiopia can also imitate the human speech. 
CHAP. 46. WILD ASSES. 
Great numbers of hysenas are produced in Africa, which 
also gives birth to multitudes of wild asses. In this species 
each male rules over a herd of females. Fearing rivals in 
their lust, they carefully watch the pregnant females, and cas- 
trate the young males with their teeth, as soon as they are 
born.^'^ The pregnant females, on the other hand, seek con- 
cealment, and endeavour to bring forth in secret, being 
desirous to increase their opportunities of sexual indulgence. 
CHAP. 47. BEAVEES, AMPHIBIOUS ANIMALS OTTEES. 
The beavers of the Euxine, when they are closely pressed by 
danger, themselves cut off the same part, as they know that 
it is for this that they are pursued. This substance is called 
castoreum by the physicians.^* In addition to this, the bite 
of this animal is terrible ; with its teeth it can cut down trees 
Ajasson, vol. vi. p. 447 ; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 439, thinks that the stories 
of the corocotta and the catohlepas, owe their origin to mutilated accounts 
of the hysena, and the animal known to us as the gnu. 
•"^2 According to Cuvier, what Pliny here says respecting the herds of 
wild asses, and the power of the old males, is correct ; but it is doubtful 
whether there is any foundation for 'what is said about the castration of 
the newly-born animals ; Ajasson, uhi supra ; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 440. — B. 
'^'^ " De aquaticis et iisdem terrestribus although these words are in- 
serted in the title of this Chapter, the subject is not treated of in it. — B. 
2* Pliny here adopts the vulgar opinion respecting the origin of the 
substance called "castor," and in B. xxxii. c. 13, gives a more correct de- 
scription, which he had derived from a physician, named Sextius. It is 
a fetid, oily substance, secreted by a gland situate near the prepuce. Cu- 
vier remarks, that when the gland becomes distended with this secretion, 
the animal may probably get rid of it by rubbing the part against a stone 
or tree, and in this way, leave the castor for the hunters, thus giving rise 
to the vulgar error. Ajasson, vol. vi. p. 448 ; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 440. — B. 
