The serpent
takes any food presented to him, eats birds and animals, and
swallows eggs entire. But after taking his prey he stretches himself
until he stands straight out to the very tip, and then he contracts
and squeezes himself into little compass, so that the swallowed mass
may pass down his outstretched body; and this action on his part is
due to the tenuity and length of his gullet. Spiders and snakes can
both go without food for a long time; and this remark may be
verified by observation of specimens kept alive in the shops of the
apothecaries.
5
Of viviparous quadrupeds such as are fierce and jag-toothed
are without exception carnivorous; though, by the way, it is stated of
the wolf, but of no other animal, that in extremity of hunger it
will eat a certain kind of earth. These carnivorous animals never
eat grass except when they are sick, just as dogs bring on a vomit
by eating grass and thereby purge themselves.
The solitary wolf is more apt to attack man than the wolf that
goes with a pack.
The animal called 'glanus' by some and 'hyaena' by others is
as large as a wolf, with a mane like a horse, only that the hair is
stiffer and longer and extends over the entire length of the chine.
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