“The tail is curly; also it has been noticed that it is easier to kill them for sacrifice when the tail curls to the right than when to the left.”
'but their stupidity is no less remarkable; for although the rest of their body is so large, they imagine, when they have thrust their head and neck into a bush, that the whole of the body is concealed.”
“It never shuts its eyes, and looks round not by moving the pupil but by turning the whole eye. It holds itself erect with its mouth always wide open, and it is the only animal that does not live on food or drink or anything else but the nutriment that it derives from the air...'
“Its reason for foisting its chicks on other birds is supposed to be that it knows itself to be hated by the whole of the birds, for even the very small birds attack it;'
“They are also believed to understand the obligations of another's religion in so far as to refuse to embark on board ships when going overseas before they are lured on by the mahout's sworn promise in regard to their return.”
“His wildness is restrained by boring a hole in the horn close to the ear. If a ligature is put on the right testicle he gets females and if on the left males. Claps of thunder cause (animal) to miscarry when solitary; the remedy is to herd them in flocks, so as to be cheered by company.”
“Strange to say, Theophrastus believes that even boiled (animal’s) flesh, if kept, goes on growing in size for that period; that no evidence of food and only the smallest amount of water is found in the belly at this stage...'”
“When praised it spreads out its jewelled colours directly facing the sun, because in that way they gleam more brilliantly;”
“(Animals) also prepare food for winter, and fixing fallen apples on their spines by rolling on them and holding one more in their mouth carry them to hollow trees.”
“A number of other remarkable facts about it are reported, but the most remarkable are that among the shepherds' homesteads it simulates human speech, and picks up the name of one of them so as to call him to come out of doors and tear him in pieces,'
“The Ethiopians give the name of nabun to one that has a neck like a horse, feet and legs like an ox, and a head like a camel, and is of a ruddy colour picked out with white spots, owing to which it is called a camelopard”
“It is the only land animal not furnished with a tongue and the only one that bites by pressing down the mobile upper jaw, and it is also formidable because of its row of teeth set close together like a comb.”
“(Animals) have a resemblance to swans, and would be thought not to differ from them at all were it not that they have a kind of second stomach in their actual throats. Into this the insatiable creature stows everything, so that its capacity is marvellous”
“The (animals) of the Black Sea region practise self-amputation of the same organ [genitals] when beset by danger, as they know that they are hunted for the sake of its secretion, the medical name for which is castoreum.”
“The fins that they use in the sea also serve them on land as feet to crawl with. Their hides even when flayed from the body are said to retain a sense of the tides, and always to bristle when the tide is going out;'
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