They have also laws and a government among themselves. Some,
like tortoises, carry the house wherein they were born; others build
theirs, as birds do, on the highest branches of trees, to preserve
their young from the insult of unwinged creatures, and they even lay
their nests in the thickest boughs to hide them from their enemies.
Another, such as the beaver, builds in the very bottom of a pond the
sanctuary he prepares for himself, and knows how to cast up dikes
around it, to preserve himself by the neighbouring inundation.
Another, like a mole, has so pointed and so sharp a snout, that in
one moment he pierces through the hardest ground in order to provide
for himself a subterranean retreat. The cunning fox digs a kennel
with two holes to go out and come in at, that he may not be either
surprised or trapped by the huntsmen. The reptiles are of another
make. They curl, wind, shrink, and stretch by the springs of their
muscles; they creep, twist about, squeeze, and hold fast the bodies
they meet in their way; and easily slide everywhere. Their organs
are almost independent one on the other; so that they still live
when they are cut into two. The long-legged birds, says Cicero, are
also long-necked in proportion, that they may bring down their bill
to the ground, and take up their food. It is the same with the
camel; but the elephant, whose neck through its bigness would be too
heavy if it were as long as that of the camel, was furnished with a
trunk, which is a contexture of nerves and muscles, which he
stretches, shrinks, winds, and turns every way, to seize on bodies,
lift them up, or throw them off: for which reason the Latins called
that trunk a hand.
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