Stags, too, have been occasionally caught with ivy green and growing on their horns,[1820] the plant having taken root on them, as it would on any piece of wood, while the animal was rubbing them against the trees. The stag is sometimes found white, as is said to have been the case with the hind of Q. Sertorius, which he persuaded the nations of Spain to look upon as having the gift of prophecy.[1821] The stag, too, fights with the serpent: it traces out the serpent’s hole, and draws it forth by the breath of its nostrils,[1822] and hence it is that the smell of burnt stags’ horn has the remarkable power of driving away serpents. The very best remedy for the bite of a serpent is the rennet of a fawn that has been killed in the womb of its mother. The stag is generally admitted to be very long lived; some were captured at the end of one hundred years with the golden collars which Alexander the Great had put upon them, and which were quite concealed by the folds of the skin, in consequence of the accumulation of fat.[1823] This animal is not subject to fever, and, indeed, it is a preservative against that complaint. We know that of late some women of princely rank have been in the habit of eating the flesh of the stag every morning, and that they have arrived at an extreme old age, free from all fevers. It is, however, generally supposed that the animal must be killed by a single wound to make sure of it possessing this virtue. (33.) Of the same species is an animal, which only differs from the stag in having a beard and long hair about the shoulders: it is called tragelaphus,[1824] and is produced nowhere except on the banks of the Phasis.[1825] CHAP. 51.—THE CHAMELEON.