Hares are seldom tamed, and yet they cannot properly be called wild animals; indeed, there are many species of them which are neither tame nor wild, but of a sort of intermediate nature; of the same kind there are among the winged animals, swallows and bees, and among the sea animals, the dolphin.

(57.) Many persons have placed that inhabitant of our houses, the mouse, in this class also; an animal which is not to be despised, for the portents which it has afforded, even in relation to public events. By gnawing the silver shields at Lanuvium,2105 mice prognosticated the Marsian war; and the death of our general, Carbo, at Clusium,2106 by gnawing the latchets with which he fastened his shoes.2107 There are many species of this animal in the territory of Cyrenaica; some of them with a wide, others with a projecting, forehead, and some again with bristling hair, like the hedgehog.2108 We are informed by Theophrastus, that after the mice had driven the inhabitants of Gyara2109 from their island, they even gnawed the iron; which they also do, by a kind of natural instinct, in the iron forges among the Chalybes. In gold mines, too, their stomachs are opened for this purpose, and some of the metal is always to be found there, which they have pilfered,2110 so great a delight do they take in stealing! We learn from our Annals, also, that at the siege of Casilinum,2111 by Hannibal, a mouse was sold for two hundred denarii,2112 and that the person who sold it perished with hunger, while the purchaser survived. To be visited by white mice is considered as indicative of a fortunate event; but our Annals are full of instances in which the singing2113 of a mouse has interrupted the auspices.2114 Nigidius informs us, that the field-mouse conceals itself during winter: this is also said to be the case with the dormouse, which the regulations of the censors, and of M. Scaurus, the chief of the senate, when he was consul,2115 have banished from our tables,2116 no less than shell-fish and birds, which are brought from a foreign country. The dormouse is also a half-wild animal, and the same person2117 made warrens for them in large casks, who first formed parks for wild boars. In relation to this subject, it has been remarked that dormice will not mate, unless they happen to be natives of the same forest; and that if those are put together that are brought from different rivers or mountains, they will fight and destroy each other. These animals nourish their parents, when worn out with old age, with a singular degree of affection. This old age of theirs is put an end to by their winter’s rest, when they conceal themselves and sleep; they are young again by the summer. The field-mouse2118 also enjoys a similar repose.