Birds, as a rule, are very spare drinkers. In fact birds of prey
never drink at all, excepting a very few, and these drink very rarely;
and this last observation is peculiarly applicable to the kestrel. The
kite has been seen to drink, but he certainly drinks very seldom.
4
Animals that are coated with tessellates-such as the lizard and
the other quadrupeds, and the serpents-are omnivorous: at all events
they are carnivorous and graminivorous; and serpents, by the way,
are of all animals the greatest gluttons.
Tessellated animals are spare drinkers, as are also all such
animals as have a spongy lung, and such a lung, scantily supplied with
blood, is found in all oviparous animals. Serpents, by the by, have an
insatiate appetite for wine; consequently, at times men hunt for
snakes by pouring wine into saucers and putting them into the
interstices of walls, and the creatures are caught when inebriated.
Serpents are carnivorous, and whenever they catch an animal they
extract all its juices and eject the creature whole. And, by the
way, this is done by all other creatures of similar habits, as for
instance the spider; only that the spider sucks out the juices of
its prey outside, and the serpent does so in its belly.
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