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

Chapter 150: CHAP. 47.—BEAVERS, AMPHIBIOUS ANIMALS;1801 OTTERS.

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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. 47.—BEAVERS, AMPHIBIOUS ANIMALS;1801 OTTERS.

The beavers of the Euxine, when they are closely pressed by danger, themselves cut off the same part, as they know that it is for this that they are pursued. This substance is called castoreum by the physicians.1802 In addition to this, the bite of this animal is terrible; with its teeth it can cut down trees on the banks of rivers, just as though with a knife.1803 If they seize a man by any part of his body, they will never loose their hold until his bones are broken and crackle under their teeth. The tail is like that of a fish;1804 in the other parts of the body they resemble the otter;1805 they are both of them aquatic animals, and both have hair softer than down.