So we are told of several instances of a mule (supposed to be sterile) giving birth to a young (§ 65), in one case even to triplets (§ 15), in another to a young with five feet (§ 27). For the year 83 he records among various remarkable occurrences all regarded as omens, the birth of a colt with five feet (§ 24); two years in succession a two-headed calf (§ 31-32). Very much as in the Babylonian-Assyrian collections we read (§ 14) of a sow giving birth to a young with the hands and feet of a man. Among human monstrosities, our author records the case of a boy with three feet and one hand (§ 20), with one hand (§ 52), a boy with a closed anus (§ 26, 40), with four feet, four eyes and four ears and with double genital members (§ 25). Several instances are given of androgynous infants (§ 22, 32 and 36). Twins born at Nursia in the year 100 are described as follows, 'the girl with all parts intact, the boy with the upper part of the belly open, revealing the intestines[165], the anus closed, and speaking as he expired' (§ 40). The talking infant is a not infrequent phenomenon[166]. In the following year the birth of a boy who said 'ave' is recorded (§ 41). Again, as in the collections of the =bârû= priests[167], we read (§ 57) of a woman giving birth to a serpent. To these birth-omens further examples can be added from that inexhaustible storehouse of encyclopaedic knowledge, the Natural History of Pliny the Younger who, among other things, tells us (Hist. Nat. VII 3) of a woman Alcippa who gave birth to a child with the head of an elephant[168]. Valerius Maximus in his =de Dictis Factisque Memorabilibus= devotes a chapter to =Prodigia=[169] of the same miscellaneous character as the collection of Julius Obsequens--many in fact identical--among which by the side of rivers flowing with blood, talking oxen who utter words of warning[170], rain of stones, mysterious voices, we also find birth-omens such as the speaking infant and the child with an elephant's head[171]. Suetonius[172] tells us that Caesar's horse had human feet and that the Haruspices--the Etruscan augurs--declared it to be an omen that the world would one day belong to Caesar. We see, therefore, that among the Romans birth-omens were regarded from the same point of view as among the Babylonians and Assyrians and that the interpretation of the omens was the concern of a special class who acted as diviners. Now the question may properly be put at this juncture, whether we are in a position to trace the actual interpretation of birth-omens among the Romans back to the Babylonian-Assyrian =bârû=-priests? To this question, I think an affirmative answer may unhesitatingly be given. We have in the first place the testimony of Cicero[173], as well as other writers[174] that the Etruscans who are described as skilled in all kinds of divination were especially versed in the interpretation of malformations among infants and among the young of animals. Cicero emphasizes more particularly by the