In the thickness of its fur, in its look, in the white
of its belly, and in its love of mischief, it resembles the weasel; it
is easily tamed; from its liking for honey it is a plague to
bee-hives; it preys on birds like the cat. Its genital organ, as has
been said, consists of bone: the organ of the male is supposed to be a
cure for strangury; doctors scrape it into powder, and administer it
in that form.
7
In a general way in the lives of animals many resemblances to
human life may be observed. Pre-eminent intelligence will be seen more
in small creatures than in large ones, as is exemplified in the case
of birds by the nest building of the swallow. In the same way as men
do, the bird mixes mud and chaff together; if it runs short of mud, it
souses its body in water and rolls about in the dry dust with wet
feathers; furthermore, just as man does, it makes a bed of straw,
putting hard material below for a foundation, and adapting all to suit
its own size. Both parents co-operate in the rearing of the young;
each of the parents will detect, with practised eye, the young one
that has had a helping, and will take care it is not helped twice
over; at first the parents will rid the nest of excrement, but, when
the young are grown, they will teach their young to shift their
position and let their excrement fall over the side of the nest.
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