Chapter IX.

1. Oxen eat both fruits and grass. They become fat on flatulent food, as vetches, broken beans, and stems of beans, and if any person having cut a hole in the skin inflates them and then feeds the older cattle, they fatten more rapidly, and either on whole or broken barley, or on sweet food, as on figs and grapes, wine, and the leaves of the elm, and especially in the sunshine and in warm waters. The horns of the calf, if anointed with wax, may be directed in any way that is desired, and they suffer less in the feet if their horns are rubbed with wax, or pitch, or oil.

2. Herds of cattle suffer less when moved in frost than in snow. They grow if they are deprived for a long time of sexual intercourse; wherefore the herdsmen in Epirus keep the Pyrrhic cattle, as they are called, for nine years without sexual intercourse, in order that they may grow. They call such cows apotauri. The number of these creatures reaches four hundred, and they are the property of the king. They will not live in any other country, though the attempt has been made.