[1698] In the winter of 1809 and 1810, an antique mosaic pavement was discovered at Rome, in which four tigers are represented, and which, it has been supposed, might possibly have some reference to those exhibited by Claudius. Martial, who lived a little after Pliny, speaks of tigers exhibited at Rome, by Domitian, in considerable numbers. Epig. B. viii. Ep. 26.—B.
[1699] Cuvier remarks, that the account given of the two kinds of camels, and his description generally, is correct, with the exception of their antipathy to the horse. The caravans, he says, present a constant mixture of the two animals, and even, in Arabia, the young foals are occasionally suckled by the female camel.—B.
[1700] We have a similar statement in Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ii. c. 1. Indeed, the account here given generally, is taken from him.—B.
[1701] See B. xi. c. 62.
[1702] Mentioned by Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 17, and by Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. iii. c. 7; but, as stated above, it is incorrect.—B.
[1703] At the time of rutting, according to Solinus.
[1704] He speaks here of only one of the animals which resemble the camel; the giraffe, namely. The other, which he for the present omits, is the ostrich.
[1705] The description of the giraffe, here given, is sufficiently correct, but we have a more minute account of it by Dion Cassius, B. xliii. In the time of the Emperor Gordian, ten of these animals were exhibited at Rome at once; a remarkable fact, when we bear in mind that so few have been imported into Europe for many centuries past. The giraffe is figured in the mosaic at Præneste, and under it is inscribed its name, nabi.—B. It has been found that it is unable to bear the winters of Europe.
[1706] Its form being like that of the camel, while its spots resemble those of the leopard. Horace refers to it, when speaking of an object calculated to excite the vulgar gaze; “Diversum confusa genus panthera camelo”—“The race of the panther mingled with the camel,” Ep. B. ii.; Ep. i. l. 195.
[1707] According to Dion Cassius, B. xliii., these games were celebrated A.U.C. 708.—B.