Chapter XXIX.

1. The fox copulates, mounting on the back of the female. The young are born blind, like those of the bear, and are even more inarticulate. When the season of parturition approaches, the female goes apart, so that it is rare to take a pregnant fox. When the young are born, the dam licks them, in order to warm and mature them. She never produces more than four.

2. The periods of gestation and parturition, both in point of time and the number of the young, are the same in the wolf as in the dog, and the young are blind, like those of the dog. They copulate at one season of the year, and the young are produced in the beginning of summer. A fabulous story is told of their parturition; for they say that all the she wolves produce their young in twelve days in the year; and the reason which is given for this fable is this, that during this number of days Latona was brought from the Hyperborean regions to Delos, in the form of a wolf, for fear of Juno. Whether this is or is not the period of parturition has never yet been ascertained. At present it only rests upon tradition. It does not appear to be true, nor that other tale which says that wolves only produce once in their life.

3. Cats and ichneumons produce their young in the same manner as dogs, and live upon the same things. They live about six years. The young of the panther are born blind. They are never more than four in number. The jackal is impregnated like a bitch, and the young are born blind. They produce two, or three, or four. Its length towards the tail is great. Its height is small. It runs very swiftly, although its legs are short; but on account of the softness of its tissues it can leap a great distance.

4. In Syria there are animals called hemioni which are different from those derived from a mixture of the horse and ass, though they resemble them in appearance. As the wild ass is named from its resemblance to the domestic kind, the wild asses and the hemioni differ from the domestic race in speed. These hemioni are derived from their own congeners, of which this is a proof. For some came to Phrygia in the time of Pharnaces, the father of Pharnabazus, and remain there still. There are now only three, though they say that at first there were nine.