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CHAP. 52.—PECULIARITIES RELATIVE TO CERTAIN ANIMALS.

In addition to these, there are some other peculiar properties attributed to certain animals, which require to be mentioned in the present Book. Some authors state that there is a bird in Sardinia, resembling the crane and called the "gromphena;"1 but it is no longer known even by the people of that country, in my opinion. In the same province, too, there is the ophion, an animal which resembles the deer in the hair only, and to be found2 nowhere else. The same authors have spoken also of the "subjugus,"3 but have omitted to state what animal it is, or where it is to be found. That it did formerly exist, however, I have no doubt, as certain remedies are described as being derived from it. M. Cicero speaks of animals called "biuri,"4 which gnaw the vines in Campania.

1 Possibly a kind of crane.

2 See B. viii. c. 75, and B. xxviii. c. 42.

3 It has not been identified.

4 Hardouin thinks that the worm called ἴξ by the Greeks is meant. Ovid speaks in his Fasti, B. i. 11. 354—360, of the goat, as being very fond of gnawing the vine.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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