The story goes that this work was written by desire of Alexander the Great or, as some say, Philip of Macedon, and that the writer was given a sum which sounds fabulous in order that he might obtain the best available information. What interest most the modern reader are the “sayings by the way” on the moral qualities or the intelligence of animals. “Man and the mule,” says Aristotle, “are always tame”—a classification not very complimentary to man. The ox is gentle, the wild boar is violent, crafty the serpent, noble and generous the lion. Except in the senses of touch and taste, man is far surpassed by the other animals—a remark that was endorsed by St. Thomas Aquinas, who inferred from the limitation of man’s senses that he would have made bad use of them if they had been more acute. Aristotle laid down the axiom that man alone can reason, though other animals can remember and learn, but he never pursued this theory as far as it was pushed by Descartes, much less by Malebranche. He believed that the soul of infants differed in no respect from that of animals. All animals present traces of their moral disposition, though these distinctions are more marked in man. Animals understand signs and sounds, and can be taught. The females are less ready to help the males in distress than the males are to help the females. Bears carry off their cubs with them if they are pursued. The dolphin is remarkable for the love of its young ones; two dolphins were seen supporting a small dead dolphin on their backs, that was about to sink, as if in pity for it, to keep it from being devoured by wild creatures. In herds of horses, if a mare dies, other mares will bring up the foal, and mares without foals have been known to entice foals to follow them and to show much affection to them, though they die for want of their natural sustenance.