2. The hog eats roots more than other animals, because its snout is well adapted for this operation, it is more adapted to various kinds of food than other animals. In proportion to its size its fat is developed very fast, for it becomes fat in sixty days. Those who occupy themselves in fatting hogs know how fast they fatten by weighing them when lean; they will become fat after starvation for three days. Almost all other animals become fat, after previous starvation. After three days those who fatten hogs feed them well.
3. The Thracians fatten them by giving them drink on the first day, then at first they omit one day, afterwards two, three, or four, till they reach to seven days. These creatures are fattened with barley, millet, figs, acorns, wild pears, and cucumbers. Both this and other animals with a warm stomach are fattened in idleness, and the sow also by wallowing in the mire. They prefer different kinds of food at different ages. The hog and the wolf fight together, a sixth part of its weight when alive, consists of bristles, blood, and fat. Sows and all other animals grow lean while suckling their young. This then, is the nature of these animals.
Chapter IX.
1. Oxen eat both fruits and grass. They become fat on flatulent food, as vetches, broken beans, and stems of beans, and if any person having cut a hole in the skin inflates them and then feeds the older cattle, they fatten more rapidly, and either on whole or broken barley, or on sweet food, as on figs and grapes, wine, and the leaves of the elm, and especially in the sunshine and in warm waters. The horns of the calf, if anointed with wax, may be directed in any way that is desired, and they suffer less in the feet if their horns are rubbed with wax, or pitch, or oil.
2. Herds of cattle suffer less when moved in frost than in snow. They grow if they are deprived for a long time of sexual intercourse; wherefore the herdsmen in Epirus keep the Pyrrhic cattle, as they are called, for nine years without sexual intercourse, in order that they may grow. They call such cows apotauri. The number of these creatures reaches four hundred, and they are the property of the king. They will not live in any other country, though the attempt has been made.
Chapter X.
1. The horse, mule, and ass feed upon fruit and grass, but they fatten especially on drinking, so that beasts of burden enjoy their food in proportion to the quantity of water which they drink, and the less difficulty there is of obtaining drink, the more they profit by abundance of grass. When the mare is in foal, green food causes her hair to be fine, but when it contains hard knots it is not wholesome. The first crop of Medic grass is not good, nor if any stinking water has come near it, for it gives it a bad smell. Oxen require pure water to drink, but horses in this respect resemble camels. The camel prefers water that is dirty and thick; nor will it drink from a stream before it has disturbed the water. It can remain without drinking four days, after which it drinks a great quantity.
Chapter XI.
1. The elephant can eat more than nine Macedonian medimni at one meal, but so much food at once is dangerous; it should not have altogether more than six or seven medimni, or five medimni of bread, and five mares of wine, the maris measures six cotylæ. An elephant has been known to drink as much as fourteen Macedonian measures at once, and eight more again in the evening. Many camels live thirty years, and some much more, for they have been known to live an hundred years. Some say that the elephant lives two hundred, and others three hundred years.