Horns, too, of various forms have been granted to many animals of the aquatic, marine, and reptile kind, but those which are more properly understood under that name belong to the quadrupeds only; for I look upon the tales of Actæon and of Cippus even, in Latin story, as nothing more nor less than fables.[167] And, indeed, in no department of her works has Nature displayed a greater capriciousness. In providing animals with these weapons, she has made merry at their expense; for some she has spread them out in branches, the stag, for instance; to others she has given them in a more simple form, as in the “subulo,” so called from the resemblance of its horns to a “subula,”[168] or shoemaker’s awl. In others, again, she has flattened them in the shape of a man’s hand, with the fingers extended, from which circumstance the animal has received the name of “platyceros.”[169] To the roe-buck she has given branching horns, but small, and has made them so as not to fall off and be cast each year; while to the ram she has given them of a contorted and spiral form, as though she were providing it with a cæstus for offence. The horns of the bull, again, are upright and threatening. In this last kind, the females, too, are provided with them, while in most it is only the males. The chamois has them, curving backwards; while in the fallow deer[170] they bend forward. The strepsiceros,[171] which in Africa bears the name of addax, has horns erect and spiral, grooved and tapering to a sharp point, so much so, that you would almost take them to be the sides of a lyre.[172] In the oxen of Phrygia, the horns are moveable,[173] like the ears; and among the cattle of the Troglodytæ, they are pointed downwards to the ground, for which reason it is that they are obliged to feed with the head on one side. Other animals, again, have a single horn, and that situate in the middle of the head, or else on the nose, as already stated.[174] Then, again, in some animals the horns are adapted for butting, and in others for goring; with some they are curved inwards, with others outwards, and with others, again, they are fitted for tossing: all which objects are effected in various ways, the horns either lying backwards, turning from, or else towards each other, and in all cases running to a sharp point. In one kind, also, the horns are used for the purpose of scratching the body, instead of hands.