These beasts always go in troops, and the oldest goes in front and the second in age remains the last, and thus they enclose the troop.  Out of shame they pair only at night and secretly, nor do they then rejoin the herd but first bathe in the river.  The females do not fight as with other animals; and it is so merciful that it is most unwilling by nature ever to hurt those weaker than itself.  And if it meets in the middle of its way a flock of sheep

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it puts them aside with its trunk, so as not to trample them under foot; and it never hurts any thing unless when provoked.  When one has fallen into a pit the others fill up the pit with branches, earth and stones, thus raising the bottom that he may easily get out.  They greatly dread the noise of swine and fly in confusion, doing no less harm then, with their feet, to their own kind than to the enemy.  They delight in rivers and are always wandering about near them, though on account of their great weight they cannot swim.  They devour stones, and the trunks of trees are their favourite food.  They have a horror of rats.  Flies delight in their smell and settle on their back, and the beast scrapes its skin making its folds even and kills them.

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When they cross rivers they send their young ones up against the stream of the water; thus, being set towards the fall, they break the united current of the water so that the current does not carry them away.  The dragon flings itself under the elephant’s body, and with its tail it ties its legs; with its wings and with its arms it also clings round its ribs and cuts its throat with its teeth, and the elephant falls upon it and the dragon is burst.  Thus, in its death it is revenged on its foe.

THE DRAGON.

These go in companies together, and they twine themselves after the manner of roots, and with their heads raised they cross lakes, and swim to where they find better pasture; and if they did not thus combine

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they would be drowned, therefore they combine.

THE SERPENT.

The serpent is a very large animal.  When it sees a bird in the air it draws in its breath so strongly that it draws the birds into its mouth too.  Marcus Regulus, the consul of the Roman army was attacked, with his army, by such an animal and almost defeated.  And this animal, being killed by a catapult, measured 123 feet, that is 64 1/2 braccia and its head was high above all the trees in a wood.

THE BOA(?)

This is a very large snake which entangles itself round the legs of the cow so that it cannot move and then sucks it, in such wise that it almost dries it up.  In the time of Claudius the Emperor, there was killed, on the Vatican Hill,

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one which had inside it a boy, entire, that it had swallowed.

THE MACLI.—­CAUGHT WHEN ASLEEP.