by Aristotle
The basse and the mullet are bitter enemies, but they shoal together at certain times; for at times not only do fishes of the same species swarm together, but also those whose feeding-grounds are identical or adjacent, if the food-supply be [15] abundant. The grey mullet is often found alive with its tail lopped off, and the conger with all that part of its body removed that lies to the rear of the vent; in the case of the mullet the injury is wrought by the basse, in that of the conger-eel by the muraena. There is war between the larger and the lesser fishes; for the big fishes prey on the little ones. So much on the subject of marine animals.
[20] 3 · The characters of animals, as has been observed, differ in respect to timidity, to gentleness, to courage, to tameness, to intelligence, and to stupidity.
The sheep is said to be dull and stupid. Of all quadrupeds it is the most foolish: it will saunter away to lonely places with no object in view; often in stormy weather [25] it will stray from shelter; if it be overtaken by a snowstorm, it will stand still unless the shepherd sets it in motion; it will stay behind and perish unless the shepherd brings up the rams; it will then follow home.
If you2 catch hold of a goat’s beard at the extremity—the beard is of a [30] substance resembling hair—all the companion goats will stand stock still, staring at this particular goat in a kind of dumbfounderment.
You will have a warmer bed in amongst the goats than among the sheep, because the goats will be quieter and will creep up towards you; for the goat is more impatient of cold than the sheep.
Shepherds train sheep to close in together at a clap of their hands, for if, when a thunderstorm come on, a ewe stays behind without closing in, it will miscarry if it [611a1] be with young; consequently if a sudden clap or noise is made, they close in together within the sheepfold by reason of their training.
Even bulls, when they are roaming by themselves apart from the herd, are killed by wild animals.
Sheep and goats lie crowded together, kin by kin. As soon as the sun turns, the [5] herdsmen say that goats lie no longer face to face, but back to back.
4 · Cattle at pasture keep together in their accustomed herds, and if one animal strays away the rest will follow; consequently if the herdsmen lose one particular animal, they at once look out for all the rest.
[10] When mares pasture together in the same field, if one dies the others will take up the rearing of the colt. In point of fact, the mare appears to be singularly prone by nature to maternal fondness; in proof whereof a barren mare will steal the foal from its dam, will tend it with all the solicitude of a mother, but, as it will be unprovided with mother’s milk, its solicitude will prove fatal to its charge.
5 · Among wild quadrupeds the hind appears to be pre-eminently intelligent; [15] for example, in its habit of bringing forth its young on the sides of public roads, where the fear of man forbids the approach of wild animals. Again, after parturition, it first swallows the afterbirth, then goes in quest of the seseli shrub, and after eating of it returns to its young. The mother takes its young to her lair, so [20] leading it to know its place of refuge; this lair is a precipitous rock, with only one approach, and there it is said to hold its own against all comers. The male when it gets fat, which it does in a high degree in autumn, disappears, abandoning its usual resorts, apparently under an idea that its fatness facilitates its capture. They shed [25] their horns in places difficult of access or discovery, whence the proverbial expression of ‘the place where the stag sheds his horns’; the fact being that, as having parted with their weapons, they take care not to be seen. The saying is that no man has ever seen the animal’s left horn; for the creature keeps it out of sight because it possesses some medicinal property. [30]
In their first year stags grow no horns, but only an excrescence indicating where horns will be, this excrescence being short and thick. In their second year they grow their horns for the first time, straight in shape, like pegs and on this account they are called pegs. In the third year the antlers are bifurcate; in the fourth year they are rougher; and so they go on increasing in complexity until the creature is six years old: after this they grow their horns without any differentiation, so that [611b1] you cannot by observation of them tell the animal’s age. But the patriarchs of the herd may be told chiefly by two signs; in the first place they have few teeth or none at all, and, in the second place, they have ceased to grow the pointed tips to their antlers. The forward-pointing tips of the growing horns with which the animal meets attack, are termed its ‘defenders’; with these the patriarchs are unprovided, [5] and their antlers merely grow straight upwards. Stags shed their horns annually, in the month of Thargelion; after shedding, they conceal themselves, it is said, during [10] the daytime, and, to avoid the flies, hide in thick copses; during this time, until they have grown their horns, they feed at night-time. The horns at first grow in a kind of skin envelope, and get rough by degrees; when they reach their full size the animal basks in the sun, to mature and dry them. When they need no longer rub them [15] against tree-trunks they quit their hiding-places, from a sense of security based upon the possession of defensive weapons. An Achaeine stag has been caught with a quantity of green ivy grown over its horns, it having grown apparently, as on fresh green wood, when the horns were young and tender. When a stag is stung by a [20] venom-spider or similar insect, it gathers crabs and eats them; it is said to be a good thing for man to drink the juice, but the taste is disagreeable. The hinds after parturition at once swallow the afterbirth, and it is impossible to secure it, for the hind catches it before it falls to the ground: now this substance is supposed to have [25] medicinal properties. When hunted the creatures are caught by singing or pipe-playing on the part of the hunters; they are so pleased with the music that they lie down on the grass. If there be two hunters, one before their eyes sings or plays the pipe, the other keeps out of sight and shoots, at a signal given by the confederate. If [30] the animal has its ears cocked, it can hear well and you cannot escape its ken; if its ears are down, you can.
6 · When bears are running away from their pursuers they push their cubs in front of them, or take them up and carry them; when they are being overtaken they climb up a tree. When emerging from their winter-den, they at once take to eating [612a1] cuckoo-pint, as has been said, and chew sticks of wood as though they were cutting teeth.
Many other quadrupeds help themselves in clever ways. Wild goats in Crete are said, when wounded by arrows, to go in search of dittany, which is supposed to [5] have the property of ejecting arrows in the body. Dogs, when they are ill, eat some kind of grass and produce vomiting. The panther, after eating panther’s-bane, tries to find some human excrement, which is said to heal its pain. This panther’s-bane [10] kills lions as well. Hunters hang up excrement in a vessel attached to the boughs of a tree, to keep the animal from straying to any distance; the animal meets its end in leaping up to the branch and trying to get at the medicine. They say that the panther has found out that wild animals are fond of the scent it emits; that, when it [15] goes a-hunting, it hides itself; that the other animals come nearer and nearer, and that by this stratagem it can catch even stags.
The Egyptian ichneumon, when it sees the serpent called the asp, does not attack it until it has called in other ichneumons to help; to meet the blows and bites of their enemy the assailants beplaster themselves with mud, by first soaking in the [20] river and then rolling on the ground.
When the crocodile yawns, the trochilus flies into his mouth and cleans his teeth. The trochilus gets his food thereby, and the crocodile, perceiving that it is being benefitted, does not harm it; but, when it wants it to go, it shakes its neck, lest it should bite the bird.
[25] The tortoise, when it has partaken of a viper, eats marjoram; this action has been actually observed. A man saw a tortoise perform this operation over and over again, and every time it plucked up some marjoram go back to the viper; he thereupon pulled the marjoram up by the roots, and the consequence was the tortoise died. The wea
sel, when it fights with a snake, first eats wild rue, the smell of [30] which is noxious to the snake. The dragon, when it eats fruit, swallows endive-juice; it has been seen in the act. Dogs, when they suffer from worms, eat the standing corn. Storks, and all other birds, when they get a wound fighting, apply marjoram to the place injured.
Many have seen the locust, when fighting with the snake, get a tight hold of the [612b1] snake by the neck. The weasel has a clever way of getting the better of birds; it tears their throats open, as wolves do with sheep. Weasels fight desperately with mice-catching snakes, as they both prey on the same animal.
In regard to the perception of hedgehogs, it has been observed in many places [5] that, when the wind is shifting from north to south, and from south to north, they shift the outlook of their earth-holes, and those that are kept in domestication shift over from one wall to the other. The story goes that a man in Byzantium got into high repute for foretelling a change of weather, all owing to his having noticed this habit of the hedgehog.
The marten is about as large as the smaller breed of Maltese dogs. In the [10] thickness of its fur, in its look, in the white of its belly, and in its love of mischief, it resembles the weasel; it is easily tamed; from its liking for honey it is a plague to bee-hives; it preys on birds like the cat. Its genital organ, as has been said, consists [15] of bone: the organ of the male is supposed to be a cure for strangury; doctors scrape it into powder, and administer it in that form.
7 · In a general way in the lives of animals many resemblances to human life may be observed. Acute intelligence will be seen more in small creatures than in [20] large ones, as is exemplified in the case of birds by the nest-building of the swallow. In the same way as men do, the bird mixes mud and chaff together; if it runs short of mud, it souses its body in water and rolls about in the dust with wet feathers; furthermore, just as man does, it makes a bed of straw, putting hard material below [25] for a foundation, and adapting all to suit its own size. Both parents co-operate in the rearing of the young; each of the parents will detect, with practised eye, the young one that has had a helping, and will take care it is not helped twice over; at first the parents will rid the nest of excrement, but, when the young are grown, they will [30] teach their young to shift their position and let their excrement fall over the side of the nest.
Pigeons exhibit other phenomena of a similar kind. In pairing the same male and the same female keep together; and the union is only broken by the death of one of the two parties. At the time of parturition in the female the sympathetic attentions of the male are extraordinary; if the female is afraid on account of the [613a1] impending parturition to enter the nest, the male will beat her and force her to come in. When the young are born, he will take and masticate pieces of salty earth, will open the beaks of the fledglings, and inject these pieces, thus preparing them betimes to take food. When the male bird is about to expel the young ones from the [5] nest, he cohabits with them all. As a general rule these birds show this conjugal fidelity, but occasionally a female will cohabit with other than her mate. These birds are combative, and quarrel with one another, and enter each other’s nests, though this occurs but seldom; at a distance from their nests this quarrelsomeness is [10] less marked, but in the close neighbourhood of their nests they will fight desperately. A peculiarity common to the pigeon, the ring-dove and the turtle-dove is that they do not lean the head back when they are in the act of drinking, but only when they have fully quenched their thirst. The turtle-dove and the ring-dove both have but one mate, and let no other come nigh; both sexes co-operate in the process [15] of incubation. It is difficult to distinguish between the sexes except by an examination of their interiors. Ring-doves are long-lived; cases have been known where such birds were twenty-five years old, thirty years old, and in some cases [20] forty. As they grow old their claws increase in size, and pigeon-fanciers cut the claws; as far as one can see, the birds suffer no other perceptible disfigurement by their increase in age. Turtle-doves and pigeons that are blinded by fanciers for use as decoys live for eight years. Partridges live for about fifteen years. Ring-doves and [25] turtle-doves always build their nests in the same place year after year. The male, as a general rule, is more long-lived than the female; but in the case of pigeons some assert that the male dies before the female, taking their inference from the statements of persons who keep decoy-birds in captivity. Some declare that the male [30] sparrow lives only for a year, pointing to the fact that early in spring the male sparrow has no black beard, but has one later on, as though the black-bearded birds of the last year had all died out; they also say that the females are the longer lived, on the grounds that they are caught in amongst the young birds and that their age is [613b1] rendered manifest by the hardness about their beaks. Turtle-doves in summer live in cold places, and in warm places during the winter; chaffinches affect warm habitations in summer, and cold ones in winter.
[5] 8 · Birds of a heavy build, such as quails, partridges, and the like, build no nests; indeed, where they are incapable of flight, it would be of no use if they could do so. After scraping a hole on a level piece of ground—and it is only in such a place [10] that they lay their eggs—they cover it over with thorns and sticks for security against hawks and eagles, and there lay their eggs and hatch them; after the hatching is over, they at once lead the young out from the nest, as they are not able [15] to fly afield for food for them. Quails and partridges, like domestic hens, when they go to rest, gather their brood under their wings. They do not hatch and lay in the same place so that no-one may notice the spot from their sitting a long time in it. When a man comes by chance upon a young brood, and tries to catch them, the hen-bird rolls in front of the hunter, pretending to be palsied; the man every moment thinks he is on the point of catching her, and so she draws him on and on, [20] until every one of her brood has had time to escape; hereupon she returns to the nest and calls the young back. The partridge lays not less than ten eggs, and often lays as many as sixteen. As has been observed, the bird has mischievous and deceitful habits. In the spring-time, a noisy scrimmage takes place, out of which the [25] male-birds emerge each with a hen. Owing to the lecherous nature of the bird, and from a dislike to the hen sitting, the males, if they find any eggs, roll them over and over until they break them in pieces; to provide against this the female goes to a distance and lays the eggs, and often, under the stress of parturition, lays them in [30] any chance spot that offers; if the male bird is near at hand,3 then to keep the eggs intact she refrains from visiting them. If she is seen by a man, then, just as with her fledged brood, she entices him away from the eggs by showing herself close at his feet until she has drawn him to a distance. When the females have run away and [614a1] taken to sitting, the males in a pack take to screaming and fighting; when thus engaged, they have the nickname of ‘widowers’. The bird who is beaten follows his victor, and submits to be covered by him only; and the beaten bird is covered by a second one or by any other, only clandestinely without the victor’s knowledge; this is so, not at all times, but at a particular season of the year, and with quails as well as [5] with partridges. A similar proceeding takes place occasionally with domestic cocks: for in temples, where cocks are set apart as offerings without hens, they all as a matter of course tread any new-comer. Tame partridges tread wild birds, peck at their heads,4 and treat them badly. The leader of the wild birds, with a counter-note [10] of challenge, pushes forward to attack the decoy-bird, and after he has been netted, another advances with a similar note. This is what is done if the decoy be a male; but if it be a female that is the decoy and gives the note, and the leader of the wild birds gives a counter one, the rest of the males set upon him and chase him away from the [15] female for making advances to her instead of to them; in consequence of this the male often advances without uttering any cry, so that no other may hear him and come and give him battle; and experienced fowlers assert that sometimes the male bird, when he approaches the female, makes her keep silence,
to avoid having to give battle to other males who might have heard him. The partridge has not only the note [20] here referred to, but also a thin shrill cry and other notes. Often the hen-bird rises from off her brood when she sees the male showing attentions to the female decoy; she will give the counter-note and remain still, so as to be trodden by him and divert [25] him from the decoy. The quail and the partridge are so intent upon sexual union that they often come right in the way of the decoy-birds, and not seldom alight upon their heads. So much for the sexual proclivities of the partridge, for the way in which it is hunted, and the general wicked habits of the bird. [30]
As has been said, quails and partridges build their nests upon the ground, and so also do some of the birds that are capable of flight5. Further, for instance, of such birds, the lark and the woodcock, as well as the quail, do not perch on a branch, but squat upon the ground.
9 · The woodpecker does not squat on the ground, but pecks at the bark of trees to drive out from under it maggots and gnats; when they emerge, it licks them [614b1] up with its tongue, which is large and flat. It can run up and down a tree in any way, even with the head downwards, like the gecko-lizard. For secure hold upon a tree, its claws are better adapted than those of the daw; it makes its way by sticking these [5] claws into the bark. One species of woodpecker is smaller than a blackbird, and has small reddish speckles; a second species is larger than the blackbird, and a third is not much smaller than a domestic hen. It builds a nest on trees, as has been said, on [10] olive trees amongst others. It feeds on the maggots and ants that are under the bark: it is so eager in the search for maggots that it is said sometimes to hollow a tree out to its downfall. A woodpecker once, in course of domestication, was seen to insert an almond into a hole in a piece of timber, so that it might remain steady under its [15] pecking; at the third peck it split the shell of the fruit, and then ate the kernel.