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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. It will lie in wait for a man and chase him, and will inveigle a dog within its reach by making a noise that resembles the retching noise of a man vomiting. It is exceedingly fond of putrefied flesh, and will burrow in a graveyard to gratify this propensity.

The bear is omnivorous. It eats fruit, and is enabled by the suppleness of its body to climb a tree; it also eats vegetables, and it will break up a hive to get at the honey; it eats crabs and ants also, and is in a general way carnivorous. It is so powerful that it will attack not only the deer but the wild boar, if it can take it unawares, and also the bull. After coming to close quarters with the bull it falls on its back in front of the animal, and, when the bull proceeds to butt, the bear seizes hold of the bull's horns with its front paws, fastens its teeth into his shoulder, and drags him down to the ground. For a short time together it can walk erect on its hind legs. All the flesh it eats it first allows to become carrion.

The lion, like all other savage and jag-toothed animals, is carnivorous. It devours its food greedily and fiercely, and often swallows its prey entire without rending it at all; it will then go fasting for two or three days together, being rendered capable of this abstinence by its previous surfeit. It is a spare drinker. It discharges the solid residuum in small quantities, about every other day or at irregular intervals, and the substance of it is hard and dry like the excrement of a dog. The wind discharged from off its stomach is pungent, and its urine emits a strong odour, a phenomenon which, in the case of dogs, accounts for their habit of sniffing at trees; for, by the way, the lion, like the dog, lifts its leg to void its urine. It infects the food it eats with a strong smell by breathing on it, and when the animal is cut open an overpowering vapour exhales from its inside.

Some wild quadrupeds feed in lakes and rivers; the seal is the only one that gets its living on the sea. To the former class of animals belong the so-called castor, the satyrium, the otter, and the so-called latax, or beaver. The beaver is flatter than the otter and has strong teeth; it often at night-time emerges from the water and goes nibbling at the bark of the aspens that fringe the riversides. The otter will bite a man, and it is said that whenever it bites it will never let go until it hears a bone crack. The hair of the beaver is rough, intermediate in appearance between the hair of the seal and the hair of the deer.