7. On the whole, the wild animals of Asia are the fiercest, those of Europe the boldest, and those of Libya the most varied in form; and it has passed into a proverb that Libya is always producing something new. For the want of water brings many heterogeneous animals together at the drinking places, where they copulate and produce young, if their periods of gestation happen to be the same, and their size not very different. The desire of drinking makes them gentle to each other, for they differ from the animals of other countries, in wanting to drink more in winter than in summer; for on account of the great want of water during the summer they are habituated to do without water; and if the mice drink they die. 8. Other animals are produced by the intercourse of heterogeneous creatures, as in Cyrene the wolves copulate with the dogs, and produce young; and the Laconian dogs are bred between a dog and a fox. They say that the Indian dogs are derived from the tiger and the dog; not directly, but from the third mixture of the breeds; for they say that the first race was very fierce. They take the dogs and tie them up in the desert. Many of them are devoured, if the wild animal does not happen to desire sexual intercourse. CHAPTER XXVIII. 1. Different localities produce a variety of dispositions, as mountainous and rough places, or smooth plains. They are more fierce and robust in appearance in mountains, as the swine of Athos; for the males of those which inhabit the plains cannot endure even the females of the other kind: and different situations have great influence on the bite of wild animals. All the scorpions about Pharus and other places are not painful, but in Caria and other localities they are frequent, and large, and fierce, and their sting is fatal to either man or beast, even to sows, which are but little influenced by the bite of other creatures, and black sows are more easily affected than others. The swine die very soon after being stung, if they come near the water. 2. The bite also of serpents varies much; for in Libya the asp is found, from which they form a septic poison, which is incurable. In the plant silphium[222] is found a small serpent, for the bite of which a remedy has been discovered in a small stone, which is taken out of the tomb of one of the ancient kings: this they drink dipped in wine. In some parts of Italy the bite of the gecko is found to be fatal. If one poisonous animal eats another, as, if a viper eats a scorpion, its bite is the most fatal of all. The saliva of a man is hostile to most of them. There is one small serpent, which some persons call hierus, which is avoided even by large serpents. It is a cubit long, and appears rough. Whatsoever it bites immediately becomes putrid in a circle round the wound. There is also a small serpent in India, the only one for which there is no remedy. [222] Probably assafœtida. CHAPTER XXIX.