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Jag-toothed animals drink by lapping, as do also some animals with teeth differently formed, as the mouse. Animals whose upper and lower teeth meet evenly drink by suction, as the horse and the ox; the bear neither laps nor sucks, but gulps down his drink. Birds, a rule, drink by suction, but the long necked birds stop and elevate their heads at intervals; the purple coot is the only one (of the long-necked birds) that swallows water by gulps.

Horned animals, domesticated or wild, and all such as are not jag-toothed, are all frugivorous and graminivorous, save under great stress of hunger. The pig is an exception, it cares little for grass or fruit, but of all animals it is the fondest of roots, owing to the fact that its snout is peculiarly adapted for digging them out of the ground; it is also of all animals the most easily pleased in the matter of food. It takes on fat more rapidly in proportion to its size than any other animal; in fact, a pig can be fattened for the market in sixty days. Pig-dealers can tell the amount of flesh taken on, by having first weighed the animal while it was being starved. Before the fattening process begins, the creature must be starved for three days; and, by the way, animals in general will take on fat if subjected previously to a course of starvation; after the three days of starvation, pig-breeders feed the animal lavishly. Breeders in Thrace, when fattening pigs, give them a drink on the first day; then they miss one, and then two days, then three and four, until the interval extends over seven days. The pigs' meat used for fattening is composed of barley, millet, figs, acorns, wild pears, and cucumbers. These animals-and other animals that have warm bellies-are fattened by repose. (Pigs also fatten the better by being allowed to wallow in mud. They like to feed in batches of the same age. A pig will give battle even to a wolf.) If a pig be weighed when living, you may calculate that after death its flesh will weigh five-sixths of that weight, and the hair, the blood, and the rest will weigh the other sixth. When suckling their young, swinelike all other animals-get attenuated. So much for these animals.