) Some animals change the
colour of their hair with a change in their drinking-water, for in
some countries the same species of animal is found white in one
district and black in another. And in regard to the commerce of the
sexes, water in many places is of such peculiar quality that rams,
if they have intercourse with the female after drinking it, beget
black lambs, as is the case with the water of the Psychrus
(so-called from its coldness), a river in the district of Assyritis in
the Chalcidic Peninsula, on the coast of Thrace; and in Antandria
there are two rivers of which one makes the lambs white and the
other black. The river Scamander also has the reputation of making
lambs yellow, and that is the reason, they say, why Homer designates
it the 'Yellow River.' Animals as a general rule have no hair on their
internal surfaces, and, in regard to their extremities, they have hair
on the upper, but not on the lower side.
The hare, or dasypod, is the only animal known to have hair inside
its mouth and underneath its feet. Further, the so-called mousewhale
instead of teeth has hairs in its mouth resembling pigs' bristles.
Hairs after being cut grow at the bottom but not at the top; if
feathers be cut off, they grow neither at top nor bottom, but shed and
fall out.
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