Chapter II.

1. Whatever parts a man has before, a quadruped has beneath: those that are behind in man, form the quadruped's back; most animals have a tail, the seal has a small one, like that of a stag; hereafter we shall speak of apelike animals. All viviparous quadrupeds are, so to say, rough, with hair, and not like man, who, except on his head, has not much hair on his body, and what there is, is very fine; but his head is more massy than that of other animals.

2. And all creatures that have their upper part rough with hair, are quite smooth, or only slightly rough beneath; but man is contrary to this: and again, each eyelid in man is furnished, with lashes, and he has hair on the cheek, and pubes; other animals are not so furnished, having no hair on the lower eyelid, or only a few hairs under the eyelid.

3. But some hairy quadrupeds are rough all over, as the hog, the bear, and the dog; the neck of others is the roughest part, as in those which have a mane, like the lion; in others which have a mane, the back of the neck from the head to the point of the shoulder is hairy, as the horse and the mule, and among wild animals with horns, the bonassus. The hipellaphus,[31] as it is called, has a mane upon the point of its shoulder, and so has the pardium,[32] though both these have a thin mane from the head to the shoulder, and the hipellaphus has a beard upon its larynx.

4. Both of these are horned, and have a cloven hoof: the female hipellaphus has no horns, it is about the size of a stag; there are hipellaphi in the country of the Arachotæ, where also are buffaloes. The wild differ as much from domesticated oxen, as wild hogs from tame ones; for they are black, and of great strength; their nose is curved like an eagle's beak, and their horns lie backwards; the horns of the hipellaphus are very like those of the dorcas:[33] the elephant is the least hairy of all quadrupeds. The tails of animals are like their bodies in roughness, and smoothness, in as many as have tails in proportion to their size, for some have very small tails.

5. Camels have a part peculiar to themselves, called the hump upon the back; the Bactrian camel differs from the Arabian; the one has two humps, the other but one; and they have another hump below, like the one on their back, upon which the rest of their body is supported, when they go down upon their knees. The camel has four mammæ, like the cow, and a tail like an ass, and the pudendum is behind; it has but one knee in each leg, and not many joints, as some persons say; this appearance arises from the position of the abdomen. It has a talus like that of an ox, misshapen, and small in proportion to its size.

6. The hoof is cloven; it has not teeth in both jaws. The cloven hoof is formed in this manner; the lower part is somewhat cloven, as far as the second joint of the toes, but the upper part is four-cleft as far as the first joint of the toes; there is a membrane uniting the cloven parts as in geese, the foot is fleshy underneath like that of a bear, wherefore, when camels are used in war, and become footsore, their drivers put them on leather shoes. All quadrupeds have their legs bony and sinewy and without flesh, that is all animals with feet are so formed, excepting man, and they are without hips; this is particularly the case with birds. But on the contrary, the hips, thighs, and legs of man are more fleshy than almost any other part of his body, for even the calf of his leg is fleshy.

7. Some sanguineous and viviparous quadrupeds have many divisions in the foot, like the hands and feet of man; for some, as the lion, the dog, and the panther, have many divisions of the foot; others are cloven-footed, and instead of nails have hoofs, as the sheep, the goat, the stag, and the river-horse. Some are without divisions in the foot, as the solidunguli, the horse, and the mule. The genus of swine belongs to both classes; for in Illyria, Pæonia, and other places, there are swine with a solid hoof. Those with a two-cleft hoof have two divisions, before and behind; in those with a solid hoof this is continuous.

8. Some animals have horns, others have none; most of those with horns have also cloven feet, as the ox, the stag, and the goat. We have never seen an animal with a solid hoof with two horns, and there are only a few that have a solid hoof and one horn, as the Indian ass, and the oryx.[34] Of all animals with a solid hoof, the Indian ass alone has a talus. Swine, as I said before, belong to both classes, so that they have not a well-formed astragulus.

9. Many animals with cloven hoofs have a talus; no animals with their feet in many divisions have a talus, nor has man. The lynx has as it were half a talus, and so has the lion, but it is more intricate, as some pretend. The talus is always in the hind leg, and it is placed upright upon the gamb, with the lower part outwards, and the upper part inwards; the parts called Coa[35] turned inwards towards each other, and the Chia turned outwards, and the projecting portions upwards. This is the position of the talus, in all animals which are furnished with this part. Some animals have a cloven hoof, and a mane, and two horns turned towards each other, as the bonassus, an animal which inhabits the country between Pæonia and Media.

10. All animals with horns are four-footed, unless there is any animal which metaphorically, and for the sake of a word, is said to have horns, as they say that the serpents in the neighbourhood of Thebes in Egypt have, though it is nothing more than an appendage, that is called a horn. The stag is the only animal that has solid horns, the horns of all other animals are hollow for a part of their length, and solid at the extremity; the hollow part is principally formed of skin, and round this is arranged the solid part, as in the horns of oxen. The stag is the only animal which casts its horns; they are reproduced; this takes place every year after the animal has attained the age of two years; other animals never lose their horns unless destroyed by violence.