324 
pliity's nattjbal histoet. 
[Book VIII. 
est stream intervenes, will tremble, and not dare so mncli as 
to wet even its feet. Nor yet in their pastures will they 
ever drink at any but the usual watering-place, and they make 
it their care to find some dry path by which to get at it. 
They will not pass over a bridge either, when the water can be 
seen between the planks beneath.^ Wonderful to relate, too, 
if their watering-places are changed, though they should be 
ever so thirsty, they will not drink without being either beaten 
or caressed. They ought always to have plenty of room for 
sleeping ; for they are very subject to various diseases in their 
sleep, when they repeatedly throw out their feet, and would 
immediately lame themselves by coming in contact with any 
hard substance ; so that it is necessary that they should be 
provided with an empty space. The profit which is derived 
from these animals exceeds that arising from the richest estate. 
It is a well-known fact, that in Celtiberia there are some she- 
asses which have produced to their owners as much as four hun- 
dred thousand sesterces.^^ In the rearing of she-mules it is said 
to be particularly necessary to attend to the colour of the hair 
of the ears and the eyelids, for, although the rest of the body 
be all of one colour, the mule that is produced will have all the 
colours that are found in those parts. Maecenas was the first 
person who had the young of the ass served up at his table 
they were in those times much preferred to the onager or wild 
ass but, since his time, the taste has gone out of fashion. 
An ass, after witnessing the death of another ass, survives it 
but a very short time only. 
CHAP. 69. (44.) — THE KATUEE OF MTJLES,'^^ AKD OF OTHEE BEASTS 
OF BUEDEN. 
Prom the union of the male ass and the mare a mule is pro- 
€7 « Per raritatem eorum translucentibus fluviis." — B. 
68 Upwards of £3200 sterling.— B. 
^ An epigram of Martial, B. xiii. Ep. 97, appears to refer to the em- 
ployment of the young ass as an article of food. — B. The famous sausages 
of Bologna are made, it is said, of asses' flesh. 
The onager, according to Cuvier, is the same with the ass, in the wild 
state ; it still exists in large herds in various parts of Southern Asia, and 
is called by the Tartars, Kulan. — B. 
Most of the circumstances here mentioned appear to have been taken 
ivom Aristotle, Hist. Anim.'B. vi. c. 24 and 36; Varro, B. ii. c. 8 ; and 
Columella, B. vi. c. 37.-~B. 
