[982] Hardouin says, that this is the case with the hare and the dasypus, which is a species of hare; but there is probably no foundation for the statement. Pliny repeats it in a subsequent passage, B. viii. c. 81.—B.
[983] Pliny evidently considers this a case of superfœtation, and looks upon it as not uncommon in the human species: whereas it is now considered impossible.
[984] This refers to the mythological tale of Jupiter and Amphitryon.—B.
[985] See B. v. c. 44.
[986] Most of these statements appear to be taken from Aristotle, Hist. Anim.—B.
[987] There has been much discussion respecting the meaning of this passage and the fact to which it refers. Aristotle, Hist. Anim., says, that marks made on the arm are transmitted for three generations; and Pliny, in B. xxii. c. 2, informs us, that the Daci and the Sarmatæ “make written marks upon their bodies.” The same custom prevails among the lower orders, sailors especially, in our own times. We may also remark the analogy which it hears to the practice of tattooing, so general among the Polynesian and other barbarous nations.—B.
[988] The reader may be amused by a perusal of the collection of wonderful cases of this kind, which has been made by Dalechamps; see Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 65, note 4.—B.
[989] Aristotle, in his History of Animals, relates a similar, but not the same, story; he says that it occurred in Sicily, though he afterwards speaks of it as having happened in Elis. It is conjectured by Ajasson, that the individual might have been born in Sicily, and have exhibited himself in Elis, as a wrestler. If we are really to believe that his complexion was that of an Æthiopian, it is much more probable that his mother may have had connection with a negro.—B.
[990] Few readers will fail here to recall to mind the story about the clock, in the opening chapter of “Tristram Shandy.”
[991] Dalechamps refers us to a remark of the same kind in Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. B. i. c. 80; but Ajasson remarks, that the resemblance mentioned by Cicero refers to the mind and manners, not to the body; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 67.—B.