herodotus

was to be expected, seeing that it is wise, has made all those animalsprolific which are of cowardly spirit and good for food, in order thatthey may not be all eaten up and their race fail, whereas it has madethose which are bold and noxious to have small progeny. For example,because the hare is hunted by every beast and bird as well as by man,therefore it is so very prolific as it is: and this is the only one ofall beasts which becomes pregnant again before the former young areborn, and has in its womb some of its young covered with fur andothers bare; and while one is just being shaped in the matrix, anotheris being conceived. Thus it is in this case; whereas the lioness,which is the strongest and most courageous of creatures, produces onecub once only in her life; for when she produces young she casts outher womb together with her young; and the cause of it is this:--whenthe cub being within the mother[98] begins to move about, then havingclaws by far sharper than those of any other beast he tears the womb,and as he grows larger he proceeds much further in his scratching: atlast the time of birth approaches and there is now nothing at all leftof it in a sound condition. 109. Just so also, if vipers and thewinged serpents of the Arabians were produced in the ordinary courseof their nature, man would not be able to live upon the earth; but asit is, when they couple with one another and the male is in the act ofgeneration, as he lets go from him the seed, the female seizes hold ofhis neck, and fastening on to it does not relax her hold till she haseaten it through. The male then dies in the manner which I have said,but the female pays the penalty of retribution for the male in thismanner:--the young while they are still in the womb take vengeance fortheir father by eating through their mother,[99] and having eatenthrough her belly they thus make their way out for themselves. Otherserpents however, which are not hurtful to man, produce eggs and hatchfrom them a very large number of offspring. Now vipers are distributedover all the earth; but the others, which are winged, are found ingreat numbers together in Arabia and in no other land: therefore it isthat they appear to be numerous. 110. This frankincense then isobtained thus by the Arabians; and cassia is obtained as follows:--they bind up in cows'-hide and other kinds of skins all their body andtheir face except only the eyes, and then go to get the cassia. Thisgrows in a pool not very deep, and round the pool and in it lodge, itseems, winged beasts nearly resembling bats, and they squeak horriblyand are courageous in fight. These they must keep off from their eyes,and so cut the cassia. 111. Cinnamon they collect in a yet moremarvellous manner than this: for where it grows and what land producesit they are not able to tell, except only that some say (and it is aprobable account) that it grows in those regions where Dionysos wasbrought up; and they say that large birds carry those dried stickswhich we have learnt from the Phenicians to call cinnamon, carry them,I say, to nests which are made of clay and stuck on to precipitous