The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 2 (of 6)

Chapter 134: CHAP. 31.—THE TERRESTRIAL ANIMALS OF INDIA.

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About This Book

The volume assembles an encyclopedic survey of the known world and its living inhabitants, moving from detailed regional geography and descriptions of seas, rivers, islands, and peoples to extended treatments of humanity, its generation, anatomy, and the origins and inventions of arts. Subsequent books catalog terrestrial animals—their habits, capture, and uses—followed by comprehensive observations on fish and marine creatures, their sizes and behaviors. Accounts mix naturalistic description, reported marvels, medicinal uses derived from animals, and travel and secondhand reports, organized as topical chapters intended as a practical compendium of natural and human phenomena.

CHAP. 31.—THE TERRESTRIAL ANIMALS OF INDIA.

There are in India oxen also with solid hoofs 1721 and a single horn;1722 and a wild beast called the axis, which has a skin like that of a fawn, but with numerous spots on it, and whiter;1723 this animal is looked upon as sacred to Bacchus. The Orsæan Indians hunt down a kind of ape, which has the body white 1724 all over; as well as a very fierce animal called the monoceros,1725 which has the head of the stag, the feet of the elephant, and the tail of the boar, while the rest of the body is like that of the horse; it makes a deep lowing noise, and has a single black horn, which projects from the middle of its forehead, two cubits in length.1726 This animal, it is said, cannot be taken alive.