Pliny: Indian Animals

Book VIII. c. 8. In India elephants are caught by the driver of a tame one guiding it towards a wild one which he has found alone or has separated from the herd. He then beats it, and when is fatigued transfers himself to its back and manages it as he does the other, e.g. elephants when mad with rage are tamed by hunger and blows, other elephants being brought near them to restrain their fury by means of chains. Besides this, they are in the worst of temper when in heat, and at such times they demolish the huts of the Indians with their tusks. C. 11. It is India that produces the largest elephants as well as dragons, which are at perpetual war with them, and are of so enormous a size that they can easily twine themselves round their bodies and compress them in their coils. The fight ends in the death of both the combatants, for the elephant when vanquished, in falling to the earth, crushes with his weight the dragon which is twined round him. C. 13. Ethiopia produces dragons, not so large as those of India, but still twenty cubits long. C. 25. Hyrcania and India produce the tiger, an animal of tremendous swiftness-a quality which is especially tested when we deprive the female of all her whelps, which are always very numerous. C. 30. In Ethiopia there are oxen like those of India, some with one horn and others with three. C. 31. In India there are oxen with solid hoofs and a single horn. There is besides a wild beast called the Asis, with a skin like a fawn's, except that the spots are more numerous and whiter. It is one of the animals sacred to father Bacchus. The Orsaean Indians hunt apes, the bodies of which are all over white, as well as a very fierce animal, the monoceros (unicorn), which has the head of a stag, the feet of an elephant, and the tail of a boar, while the rest of its body is like that of the horse; it makes a deep sound in lowing, and has a single black horn which projects from the middle of its forehead, and is two cubits long. This animal, it is said, cannot be taken alive. C. 52. The tarandrus of the Scythians changes its colour, but this is not the case with any of the animals which are covered with hair except the lycaon of India, which is reported to have a mane on its neck. C. 53. India and Africa produce the porcupine covered, like the hedgehog, with bristles. The quills, however, of the porcupine are longer, and when it distends its skin it discharges the like missiles. It conceals itself in the winter months. C.60. The lizards of Arabia are a cubit in length, but those on Nysa, a mountain of India, are 24 feet long, and in colour either yellow, purple, or azure blue. C. 70. It is stated that oxen of India are the height of camels, and that their horns are 4 feet from each other (at the tips). C. 78. The wild boar of India has two curved teeth a cubit long, which project from below the snout. As many project from the forehead like the horns of a bull-calf. The hair of these animals in a wild state is of a copper colour, while the others are black.

Book IX. C. 2. The most numerous and the largest of these (aquatic) animals are to be found in the Indian Sea. Among them are baloenoe of 4 jugera, and the pristis, 200 cubits in length. Here, too, are lobsters of 4 cubits, and in the river Ganges eels 300 feet long. But at sea it is about the time of the solstices when these monsters are most to be seen. For it is then that in these regions the whirlwinds sweep on amain, the rains descend, the hurricanes rush onward, hurled down from the mountain tops, while the sea upheaved from the very bottom rolls upon its surges the monsters that have been driven from their retreats in the depths below. At other times such vast shoals of tunnies are encountered that the fleet of Alexander the Great formed itself into line of battle to confront them, as it would have done when opposed to a hostile fleet, for, except by charging them with long pikes, the danger could not otherwise be evaded. No shouts, no noises, no crashing blows availed to frighten them. Nothing but their utter discomfiture dismayed and confounded them. The captains of the fleet of Alexander the Great inform us that the Gedrosians who dwell near the river Arabis make the doors of their houses with the jaw-bones of fishes and rafter the roofs with their bones, many of which were found to be each no less than 40 cubits in length. In the same country, too, the sea-monsters go out into the fields on shore just like cattle, and after feeding on the roots of shrubs return home. Some of them which had the heads of horses, asses, and bulls pastured on the crops of grain. C. 3. The largest animals found in the Indian Sea are the pristis and the balaena. C. 1 2. The Indian Sea produces turtles of such vast size that the shell of a single animal suffices to roof over a habitable cottage. C. 17. In the Ganges, a river of India, is found a fish called the platanista ; it has the muzzle and the tail of the dolphin, and is of the length of 16 cubits. Statius Sebosus brings to notice, what is in no ordinary degree marvellous, that in the same river there is a worm which has two gills and is 60 cubits long. It is of an azure colour, and owes its name to the appearance it presents. These creatures, he says, are so strong that with their fangs they seize hold of the trunks of elephants that come to drink, and drag them into the river. C. 35. Those fish called sea-mice, as well as the polypi and the muraenae, are in the habit of coming ashore. In the Indian rivers there is besides a certain kind of fish which does this and then leaps back, for they pass over into standing waters and streams. Most fishes are evidently led by instinct to do this that they may spawn in safety, since in such waters there are no animals to devour their young, and the waves are less violent. It is still more a wonder to find that they have a comprehension of causation and observe the recurrence of periods, when we reflect that the best time for catching fish is while the sun is passing though the sign of pisces.

Book X. 2 (2). Ethiopia and India, more especially, produce birds of diversified plumage, and such as quite surpass all description.

C. 30 (23). By the departure of the cranes which were in the habit of waging war with the pygmies, that race no enjoys a respite from their hostilities. The tracts over which they travel must be immense, when we consider that they come from such a distance as the Eastern Sea. C. 41 (58). Above all, there are birds that imitate the human voice-parrots, for instance, which are even able to converse. This bird is sent us from India, where it is called the septagen. The body is all over green, except that around its neck it is marked with a ring of red. It salutes its masters , and pronounces such words as it hears spoken. It becomes very frolicsome under the effects of wine. Its head is as hard as its beak, and this is beaten with an iron rod if it does not learn to speak what is being taught, for it feels no pain if struck elsewhere than on the head. When it alights it falls on its beak, and by supporting itself by this means it makes itself so much the lighter for its feet, which are naturally weak.

BOOK XI. c. 46 (106). Horned animals are in general clovenfooted, but no animal has at once a solid hoof and a pair of horns. The Indian ass alone is armed with a single horn, . . . and is the only instance of a solid-hoofed animal that is provided with a pastern-bone.

C. 31. The horns of the Indian ant were miraculously fixed up in the temple of Hercules at Erythrae. These ants dig gold from holes underground in the country of the Northern Indians, who are called Dardae. They are of the colour of cats and of the size of Egyptian wolves. The gold which they dig up in winter the Indians steal in summer when the violence of the heat has compelled the ants to bury themselves in the ground. But the ants, being roused by the smell of the robbers, rush out of their holes, and overtaking the fugitives, as they frequently do, though these are mounted on the swiftest of camels, they tear them to pieces, so great is the speed and the ferocity of these animals, and withal their love of gold.

BOOK XXVIII. c. 8 (30). The scincus has been called by some writers the land-crocodile; but it is whiter in appearance and the skin is not so thick. The main difference, however, between it and the crocodile is in the arrangement of the scales, which run from the tail to the head. The Indian kind is the largest, the Arabian coming next. They are brought to us salted. C. 10 (45). The Greeks had no knowledge from experience of the urus and bison, although the forests of India are filled with herds of wild oxen.

From: McCrindle, J. W. Ancient India as Described in Classical Literature. Westminster: Archibald Constable, 1901, 114-119.