[142] M. de Veltheim thinks that by this is really meant the Canis corsac, the small fox of India, but that by some mistake it was represented by travellers as an ant. It is not improbable, Cuvier says, that some quadruped, in making holes in the ground, may have occasionally thrown up some grains of the precious metal. The story is derived from the narratives of Clearchus and Megasthenes. Another interpretation of this story has also been suggested. We find from some remarks of Mr. Wilson, in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society, on the Mahabharata, a Sanscrit poem, that various tribes on the mountains Meru and Mandara (supposed to lie between Hindostan and Tibet) used to sell grains of gold, which they called paippilaka, or “ant-gold,” which, they said, was thrown up by ants, in Sanscrit called pippilaka. In travelling westward, this story, in itself, no doubt, untrue, may very probably have been magnified to its present dimensions.
[143] Cuvier observes, that this is a very correct account of the cabbage or radish butterfly, the Papilio brassicæ or Papilio raphani of Linnæus.
[144] Cossi. See B. xvii. c. [37].
[145] Tæniæ.
[146] He alludes to the Morbus pediculosus.
[147] Aristotle says, in the corresponding passage, Hist. Anim. B. v. c. 26, that the animals which are affected by lice, are more particularly exposed to them when they change the water in which they wash.
[148] Or “leapers.”
[149] He alludes to dog-ticks and ox-ticks, the Acarus ricinus of Linnæus, and the Acarus reduvius of Schrank.
[150] In c. 32 he has said the same of the grasshopper; in relation to its drink.
[151] A variety of the Cynips of Linnæus, which in vast numbers will sometimes adhere to the ears of dogs.