(49.) There is in Spain, and more especially in Corsica, a peculiar kind of animal called the musmon,[2039] not very unlike a sheep, but with a fleece which more resembles the hair of the goat than the wool of the sheep. The ancients gave the name of umbri[2040] to the breed between this animal and the sheep. The head of the sheep is the weakest part of all, on which account it is obliged, when it feeds, to turn away from the sun.[2041] The animals which are covered with wool are the most stupid of all.[2042] When they are afraid to enter any place, if one is only dragged into it by the horns, all the rest will follow. The longest duration of their life is ten years; but in Æthiopia it is thirteen. Goats live in that country eleven years, but in other parts of the world mostly eight years only. Both of these animals require to be covered not more than four times to ensure conception.
CHAP. 76. (50.)—GOATS AND THEIR PROPAGATION.
The goat occasionally brings forth as many as four at a birth; but this is rarely the case.[2043] It is pregnant five months, like the sheep. Goats become barren when very fat. There is little advantage to be derived from their bringing forth before their third year, or after the fourth, when they begin to grow old.[2044] They are capable of generating in the seventh month, and while they are still sucking. In both sexes those that have no horns are considered the most valuable.[2045] A single coupling in the day is not sufficient; the second and the following ones are more effectual. They conceive in the month of November, so as to bring forth in the month of March, when the buds are bursting; this is sometimes the case with them when only one year old, and always with those of the second year; but the produce of those which are three years old is the most valuable.[2046] They continue to bring forth for a period of eight years. Cold produces abortion. When their eyes are surcharged, the female discharges the blood from the eye by pricking it with the point of a bulrush, and the male with the thorn of a bramble.
Mutianus relates an instance of the intelligence of this animal, of which he himself was an eye-witness. Two goats, coming from opposite directions, met on a very narrow bridge, which would not admit of either of them turning round, and in consequence of its great length, they could not safely go backwards, there being no sure footing on account of its narrowness, while at the same time an impetuous torrent was rapidly rushing beneath; accordingly, one of the animals lay down flat, while the other walked over it.
Among the males, those are the most esteemed which have flat noses and long hanging ears,[2047] the shoulders being covered with very thick shaggy hair; the mark of the most valuable among the females is the having two folds[2048] hanging down the body from under the neck. Some of these animals have no horns; but where there are horns, the age of the animal is denoted by the number of knots on them. Those that have no horns give the most milk.[2049] According to Archelaus,[2050] they breathe, not through the nose, but the ears,[2051] and they are never entirely free from fever,[2052] from which circumstance it is, probably, that they are more animated than sheep, more ardent, and have stronger sexual passions. It is said also, that they have the power of seeing by night as well as in the day, for which reason those persons who are called Nyctalopes,[2053] recover the power of seeing in the evening, by eating the liver of the he-goat. In Cilicia, and in the vicinity of the Syrtes, the inhabitants shear the goat for the purpose of clothing themselves.[2054] It is said that the she-goats in the pastures will never look at each other at sun-set, but lie with their backs towards one another,[2055] while at other times of the day they lie facing each other and in family groups. They all have long hair hanging down from the chin, which is called by us aruncus.[2056] If any one of the flock is taken hold of and dragged by this hair, all the rest gaze on in stupid astonishment; and the same happens when any one of them has eaten of a certain herb.[2057] Their bite is very destructive to trees, and they make the olive barren by licking it;[2058] for which reason they are not sacrificed to Minerva.[2059]
CHAP. 77. (51.)—THE HOG.[2060]
The period for coupling the hog lasts from the return of the west wind to the vernal equinox; the proper age commences in the eighth month, indeed, in some places, in the fourth even, and continues until the eighth year.[2061] They bring forth twice in the year, the time of gestation being four months; the number at a birth amounts to twenty even, but they cannot rear so large a number.[2062] Nigidius informs us, that those which are produced within ten days of the winter solstice are born with teeth. One coupling is sufficient, but it is repeated, on account of their extreme liability to abortion; the remedy for which is not to allow coupling the first time the female is in heat, nor until its ears are flaccid and pendant. The males do not generate after they are three years old. When the females become feeble from old age, they receive the males lying down.[2063] It is not looked upon as anything portentous when they eat their young. The young of the hog is considered in a state of purity for sacrifice when five days old,[2064] the lamb on the seventh day, and the calf on the thirtieth. Coruncanius asserts, that ruminant animals are not proper for victims until they have two teeth.[2065] It has been supposed, that when a pig has lost one eye, it will not live long;[2066] otherwise, these animals generally live up to fifteen, or sometimes twenty years. They sometimes become mad; besides which, they are liable to other diseases, especially to quinsy[2067] and to scrofula.[2068] It is an indication that the hog is diseased, when blood is found at the root of a bristle pulled from its back, and when it holds its head on one side while walking. When the female becomes too fat, she has a deficiency of milk; the first litter is always the least numerous. Animals of this kind delight in rolling in the mud.[2069] The tail is curled, and it has also been remarked, that those are a more acceptable offering to the gods, whose tail is turned to the right than those which have it turned to the left. They may be fattened in sixty days, and more especially if they have been kept without food for three days before fattening. The swine is by far the most brutish of all the animals, and it has been said, and not unaptly, that life has been given them in place of salt.[2070] And yet it has been known, that these animals, when carried away by thieves, have recognized the voice of their keeper; and when a vessel has been under water through the inclination of one of its sides, they have had the sense to go over to the other side. The leader of the herd will even learn to go to market, and to different houses in the city. In the wild state also, they have the sense to pass their urine in plashy places, that they may destroy all traces of them, and so lighten themselves for flight.[2071] The female is spayed, just as is done with the camel; after they have fasted two days, they are suspended by the hind feet, and the orifice of the womb is cut; after this operation, they fatten more quickly.[2072]
M. Apicius[2073] made the discovery, that we may employ the same artificial method of increasing the size of the liver of the sow, as of that of the goose;[2074] it consists in cramming them with dried figs, and when they are fat enough, they are drenched with wine mixed with honey, and immediately killed. There is no animal that affords a greater variety to the palate of the epicure; all the others have their own peculiar flavour, but the flesh of the hog has nearly fifty different flavours. Hence it is, that there are whole pages of regulations made by the censors, forbidding the serving up at banquets of the belly, the kernels,[2075] the testicles, the womb, and the cheeks. However, notwithstanding all this, the poet Publius,[2076] the author of the Mimes, when he ceased to be a slave, is said to have given no entertainment without serving up the belly of a sow, to which he also gave the name of “sumen.”
CHAP. 78.—THE WILD BOAR; WHO WAS THE FIRST TO ESTABLISH PARKS FOR WILD ANIMALS.
The flesh of the wild boar is also much esteemed. Cato, the Censor, in his orations, strongly declaimed against the use of the brawn of the wild boar.[2077] The animal used to be divided into three portions, the middle part of which was laid by,[2078] and is called boar’s chine. P. Servilius Rullus was the first Roman who served up a whole boar at a banquet; the father of that Rullus, who, in the consulship of Cicero, proposed the Agrarian law. So recent is the introduction of a thing which is now in daily use. The Annalists have taken notice of such a fact as this, clearly as a hint to us to mend our manners; seeing that now-a-days two or three boars are consumed, not at one entertainment, but as forming the first course only.