The bird also, which is called the ibis,[1774] a native of the same country of Egypt, has shewn us some things of a similar nature. By means of its hooked beak, it laves the body through that part, by which it is especially necessary for health that the residuous food should be discharged. Nor, indeed, are these the only inventions which have been borrowed from animals, to prove of use to man. The power of the herb dittany, in extracting arrows, was first disclosed to us by stags that had been struck by that weapon; the weapon being discharged on their feeding upon this plant.[1775] The same animals, too, when they happen to have been wounded by the phalangium, a species of spider, or by any insect of a similar nature, cure themselves by eating crabs. One of the very best remedies for the bite of the serpent, is the plant[1776] with which lizards treat their wounds when injured in fighting with each other. The swallow has shown us that the chelidonia[1777] is very serviceable to the sight, by the fact of its employing it for the cure of its young, when their eyes are affected. The tortoise recruits its powers of effectually resisting serpents, by eating the plant which is known as cunile bubula;[1778] and the weasel feeds on rue, when it fights with the serpent in the pursuit of mice.[1779] The stork cures itself of its diseases with wild marjoram, and the wild boar with ivy, as also by eating crabs, and more particularly those that have been thrown up by the sea.[1780] The snake, when the membrane which covers its body has been contracted by the cold of winter, throws it off in the spring by the aid of the juices of fennel,[1781] and thus becomes sleek and youthful in appearance. First of all, it disengages the head, and it then takes no less than a day and a night in working itself out, and divesting itself of the membrane in which it has been enclosed. The same animal, too, on finding its sight weakened during its winter retreat, anoints and refreshes its eyes by rubbing itself on the plant called fennel or marathrum; but if any of the scales are slow in coming off,[1782] it rubs itself against the thorns of the juniper. The dragon relieves the nausea which affects it in spring, with the juices of the lettuce.[1783] The barbarous nations go to hunt the panther, provided with meat that has been rubbed with aconite, which is a poison.[1784] Immediately on eating it, compression of the throat overtakes them, from which circumstance it is, that the plant has received the name of pardalianches.[1785] The animal, however, has found an antidote against this poison in human excrements; besides which, it is so eager to get at them, that the shepherds purposely suspend them in a vessel, placed so high, that the animal cannot reach them even by leaping, when it endeavours to get at them; accordingly, it continues to leap until it has quite exhausted itself, and at last expires: otherwise, it is so tenacious of life, that it will continue to fight long after its intestines have been dragged out of its body.
When an elephant has happened to devour a chameleon, which is of the same colour with the herbage, it counteracts this poison by means of the wild olive. Bears, when they have eaten of the fruit of the mandrake, lick up numbers of ants.[1786] The stag counteracts the effect of poisonous plants by eating the artichoke. Wood-pigeons, jackdaws, blackbirds, and partridges, purge themselves once a year by eating bay leaves; pigeons, turtle-doves, and poultry, with wall-pellitory, or helxine; ducks, geese, and other aquatic birds, with the plant sideritis or vervain; cranes, and birds of a similar nature, with the bulrush. The raven, when it has killed a chameleon, a contest in which even the conqueror suffers, counteracts the poison by means of laurel.
CHAP. 42. (28.)—PROGNOSTICS OF DANGER DERIVED FROM ANIMALS.
There are a thousand other facts of this kind: and the same Nature has also bestowed upon many animals as well, the faculty of observing the heavens, and of presaging the winds, rains, and tempests, each in its own peculiar way. It would be an endless labour to enumerate them all; just as much as it would be to point out the relation of each to man.[1787] For, in fact, they warn us of danger, not only by their fibres and their entrails, to which a large portion of mankind attach the greatest faith, but by other kinds of warnings as well. When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it[1788] before-hand, and the spiders with their webs are the first to drop. Divination from birds has been made a science among the Romans, and the college of its priests is looked upon as peculiarly sacred.[1789] In Thrace, when all parts are covered with ice, the foxes are consulted, an animal which, in other respects, is baneful from its craftiness. It has been observed, that this animal applies its ear to the ice, for the purpose of testing its thickness; hence it is, that the inhabitants will never cross frozen rivers and lakes until the foxes have passed over them and returned.
CHAP. 43. (29.)—NATIONS THAT HAVE BEEN EXTERMINATED BY ANIMALS.
We have accounts, too, no less remarkable, in reference even to the most contemptible of animals. M. Varro informs us, that a town in Spain was undermined by rabbits, and one in Thessaly, by mice; that the inhabitants of a district in Gaul were driven from their country by frogs,[1790] and a place in Africa by locusts;[1791] that the inhabitants of Gyarus,[1792] one of the Cyclades, were driven away by mice;[1793] and the Amunclæ, in Italy, by serpents. There is a vast desert tract on this side of the Æthiopian Cynamolgi,[1794] the inhabitants of which were exterminated by scorpions and venomous ants.[1795] and Theophrastus informs us, that the people of Rhœteum[1796] were driven away by scolopendræ.[1797] But we must now return to the other kinds of wild beasts.
CHAP. 44. (30.)—THE HYÆNA.
It is the vulgar notion, that the hyæna possesses in itself both sexes, being a male during one year, and a female the next, and that it becomes pregnant without the co-operation: of the male; Aristotle, however, denies this.[1798] The neck, with the mane, runs continuously into the back-bone, so that the animal cannot bend this part without turning round the whole body. Many other wonderful things are also related of this animal; and strangest of all, that it imitates the human voice among the stalls of the shepherds; and while there, learns the name of some one of them, and then calls him away, and devours him. It is said also, that it can imitate a man vomiting, and that, in this way, it attracts the dogs, and then falls upon them. It is the only animal that digs up graves, in order to obtain the bodies of the dead. The female is rarely caught: its eyes, it is said, are of a thousand various colours and changes of shade. It is said also, that on coming in contact with its shadow, dogs will lose their voice, and that, by certain magical influences, it can render any animal immoveable, round which it has walked three times.
CHAP. 45.—THE COROCOTTA; THE MANTICHORA.[1799]
By the union of the hyæna with the Æthiopian lioness, the 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 rubbing against each other. Juba informs us, that the mantichora of Æthiopia can also imitate the human speech.