Whether land or sea animals are cleverer (18-20)

The loves of some animals are wild and furious, while others have a refinement which is not far from human and an intercourse conducted with much grace. Such was the elephant which at Alexandria played the rival to Aristophanes[*] the grammarian. They were, in fact, in love with the same flower-girl; nor was the elephant’s love the less manifest: as he passed by the market, he always brought her fruit and stood beside her for a long time and would insert his trunk, like a hand,[*] within her garments and gently caress her fair breasts.

The serpent that fell in love with an Aetolian woman[*] used to visit her at night and slip under some part of her body next the skin and coil about her without doing her any harm at all, either intentional or accidental; but always at daybreak it was decent enough to glide away. And this it did constantly until the kinsmen of the woman removed her to a house at some distance. The serpent did not come to her for three or four nights; but all the time, we may suppose, it was going about in search of her and missing its goal. At last, when it had somehow found her with difficulty, it embraced her, not with that former gentleness it had used, but rather more roughly, its coils binding her hands to her body, and with the end of its tail it lashed the calves of her legs, displaying a light and tender anger that had in it more indulgence than punishment.

As for the goose in Aegium that loved a boy and the ram that set his heart on Glauce[*] the harp-player, since these are famous tales and I rather imagine you have had enough of such to spoil your appetite for more,[*] I omit them.

As for starlings[*] and crows and parrots which learn to talk and afford their teachers so malleable and imitative a vocal current to train and discipline, they seem to me to be champions and advocates of the other animals in their ability to learn, instructing us in some measure that they too are endowed both with rational utterance[*] and with articulate voice; for which reason it is quite ridiculous to admit a comparison of them with creatures who have not enough voice even to howl or groan.[*] And what music, what grace do we not find in the natural, untaught warbling of birds ! To this the most eloquent and musical of our poets bear witness[*] when they compare their sweetest songs and poems to the singing of swans and nightingales. Now since there is more reason in teaching than in learning, we must yield assent to Aristotle[*] when he says that animals do teach: a nightingale, in fact, has been observed instructing her young how to sing. A further proof that supports him is the fact that birds which have been taken young from the nest and bred apart from their mothers sing the worse for it[*]; for the birds that are bred with their mothers are taught and learn, not for pay or glory, but for the joy of rivalling each other in song and because they cherish the beautiful in their utterance rather than the useful.

On this subject I have a story to tell you which I heard myself from many Greeks and Romans who were eye-witnesses. A certain barber at Rome had his shop directly opposite the precinct which they call the Market of the Greeks.[*] He bred up a wonderful prodigy of a jay[*] with a huge range of tones and expressions, which could reproduce the phrases of human speech and the cries of beasts and the sound of instruments - under no compulsion, but making it a rule and a point of honour to let nothing go unrepeated or unimitated. Now it happened that a certain rich man was buried from that quarter to the blast of many trumpets and, as is customary, there was a halt in front of the barber-shop while the trumpeters, who were applauded and encored, played for a long time. From that day on the jay was speechless and mute, not letting out even a peep to request the necessities of life; so those who habitually passed the place and had formerly wondered at her voice, were now even more astonished at her silence. Some suspected that she had been poisoned by rival bird-trainers, but most conjectured that the trumpets had blasted her hearing and that her voice had been simultaneously extinguished. Now neither of these guesses was correct: it was self-discipline, it would seem, and her talent for mimicry that had sought an inner retreat as she refitted and prepared her voice like a musical instrument. For suddenly her mimicry returned and there blazed forth none of those old familiar imitations, but only the music of the trumpets,[*] reproduced with its exact sequences and every change of pitch and rhythm and tone. I conclude, as I said before,[*] that self-instruction implies more reason in animals than does readiness to learn from others.

Still, I believe that I should not pass over one example at least of a dog’s learning,[*] of which I myself was a spectator at Rome. The dog appeared in a pantomime with a dramatic plot and many characters and conformed in its acting at all points with the acts and reactions required by the text. In particular, they experimented on it with a drug that was really soporific, but supposed in the story to be deadly. The dog took the bread that was supposedly drugged, swallowed it, and a little later appeared to shiver and stagger and nod until it finally sprawled out and lay there like a corpse, letting itself be dragged and hauled about, as the plot of the play prescribed. But when it recognized from the words and action that the time had come, at first it began to stir slightly, as though recovering from a profound sleep, and lifted its head and looked about. Then to the amazement of the spectators it got up and proceeded to the right person and fawned on him with joy and pleasure so that everyone, and even Caesar himself (for the aged Vespasian[*] was present in the Theatre of Marcellus), was much moved.

[*] Yet perhaps it is ridiculous for us to make a parade of animals distinguished for learning when Democritus[*] declares that we have been their pupils in matters of fundamental importance: of the spider in weaving and mending, of the swallow in homebuilding, of the sweet-voiced swan and nightingale[*] in our imitation of their song. Further, of the three divisions of medicine,[*] we can discern in animals a generous portion of each; for it is not cure by drugs alone of wrhich they make use. After devouring a serpent tortoises[*] take a dessert of marjoram, and weasels[*] of rue. Dogs[*] purge themselves when bilious by a certain kind of grass. The snake[*] sharpens and restores its fading sight with fennel. When the she-bear comes forth from her lair,[*] the first thing she eats is wild arum[*]; for its acridity opens her gut which has become constricted. At other times, when she suffers from nausea,[*] she resorts to anthills and sits, holding out her tongue all running and juicy with sweet liquor until it is covered with ants; these she swallows[*] and is alleviated. The Egyptians[*] declare that they have observed and imitated the ibis’ clyster-like purging of herself with brine; and the priests make use of water from which an ibis has drunk to purify themselves; for if the water is tainted or unhealthy in any way, the ibis will not approach it.

Then, too, some beasts cure themselves by a short fast, like wolves[*] and lions who, when they are surfeited with flesh, lie still for a while, basking in the sun. And they say a tigress, if a kid is given her, will keep fasting for two days without eating; on the third, she grows hungry and asks for some other food. She will even pull her cage to pieces, but will not touch the kid which she has now come to regard as a fellow-boarder and room mate.[*]

Yet again, they relate that elephants employ surgery: they do, in fact, bring aid to the wounded[*] by easily and harmlessly drawing out spears and javelins and arrows without any laceration of the flesh. And Cretan goats,[*] when they eat dittany,[*] easily expel arrows from their bodies and so have presented an easy lesson for women with child to take to heart, that the herb has an abortive property[*]; for there is nothing except dittany that the goats, when they are wounded, rush to search for.