ry and Venus.

[223] The proboscis of the elephant is frequently called a hand,
because it is as useful to him as one. "They breathe, drink, and smell,
with what may not be improperly called a hand," says Pliny, bk. viii.
c. 10.--DAVIS.

[224] The passage of Aristotle's works to which Cicero here alludes is
entirely lost; but Plutarch gives a similar account.

[225] Balbus does not tell us the remedy which the panther makes use
of; but Pliny is not quite so delicate: he says, _excrementis hominis
sibi medetur_.

[226] Aristotle says they purge themselves with this herb after they
fawn. Pliny says both before and after.

[227] The cuttle-fish has a bag at its neck, the black blood of which
the Romans used for ink. It was called _atramentum_.

[228] The Euphrates is said to carry into Mesopotamia a large quantity
of citrons, with which it covers the fields.

[229] Q. Curtius, and some other authors, say the Ganges is the largest
river in India; but Ammianus Marcellinus concurs with Cicero in calling
the river Indus the largest of all rivers.

[230] These Etesian winds return periodically once a year, and blow at
certain seasons, and for a certain time.

[231] Some read _mollitur_, and some _molitur;_ the latter of which P.
Manucius justly prefers, from the verb _molo_, _molis;_ from whence,
says he, _molares dentes_, the grinders.

[232] The weasand, or windpipe.

[233] The epiglottis, which is a cartilaginous flap in the shape of a
tongue, and therefore called so.

[234] Cicero is here giving the opinion of the ancients concerning the
passage of the chyle till it is converted to blood.

[235] What Cicero here calls the ventricles of the heart are likewise
called auricles, of which there is the right and left.

[236] The Stoics and Peripatetics said that the nerves, veins, and
arteries come directly from the heart. According to the anatomy of the
moderns, they come from the brain.

[237] The author means all musical instruments, whether string or wind
instruments, which are hollow and tortuous.

[238] The Latin version of Cicero is a translation from the Greek of
Aratus.

[239] Chrysippus's meaning is, that the swine is so inactive and
slothful a beast that life seems to be of no use to it but to keep it
from putrefaction, as salt keeps dead flesh.

[240] _Ales_, in the general signification, is any large bird; and
_oscinis_ is any singing bird. But they here mean those birds which are
used in augu