Megasthenes informs us, that in India, serpents grow to such an immense size, as to swallow stags and bulls;[1647] while Metrodorus says, that about the river Rhyndacus,[1648] in Pontus, they seize and swallow the birds that are flying above them, however high and however rapid their flight.[1649] It is a well-known fact, that during the Punic war, at the river Bagrada, a serpent one hundred and twenty feet in length was taken by the Roman army under Regulus, being besieged, like a fortress, by means of balistæ and other engines of war.[1650] Its skin and jaws were preserved in a temple at Rome, down to the time of the Numantine war. The serpents which in Italy are known by the name of boa, render these accounts far from incredible, for they grow to such a vast size, that a child was found entire in the stomach of one of them, which was killed on the Vaticanian Hill during the reign of the Emperor Claudius.[1651] These are nourished, in the first instance, with the milk of the cow, and from this they take their name.[1652] As to the other animals, which have been of late repeatedly brought to Italy from all parts of the world, it is quite unnecessary to give any minute account of their form. CHAP. 15. (15.)—THE ANIMALS OF SCYTHIA; THE BISON. Scythia produces but very few animals, in consequence of the scarcity of shrubs. Germany, which lies close adjoining it, has not many animals, though it has some very fine kinds of wild oxen: the bison, which has a mane, and the urus,[1653] possessed of remarkable strength and swiftness. To these, the vulgar, in their ignorance, have given the name of bubalus:[1654] whereas, that animal is really produced in Africa, and rather bears a resemblance to the calf and the stag. CHAP. 16.—THE ANIMALS OF THE NORTH; THE ELK, THE ACHLIS, AND THE BONASUS.