Aristotle's History of Animals In Ten Books · Aristotle
CHAPTER X.
1. The horse, mule, and ass feed upon fruit and grass, but they fatten especially on drinking, so that beasts of burden enjoy their food in proportion to the quantity of water which they drink, and the less difficulty there is of obtaining drink, the more they profit by abundance of grass. When the mare is in foal, green food causes her hair to be fine, but when it contains hard knots it is not wholesome. The first crop of Medic grass is not good, nor if any stinking water has come near it, for it gives it a bad smell. Oxen require pure water to drink, but horses in this respect resemble camels. The camel prefers water that is dirty and thick; nor will it drink from a stream before it has disturbed the water. It can remain without drinking four days, after which it drinks a great quantity. 1. The elephant can eat more than nine Macedonian medimni at one meal, but so much food at once is dangerous; it should not have altogether more than six or seven medimni, or five medimni of bread, and five mares of wine, the maris measures six cotylæ. An elephant has been known to drink as much as fourteen Macedonian measures at once, and eight more again in the evening. Many camels live thirty years, and some much more, for they have been known to live an hundred years. Some say that the elephant lives two hundred, and others three hundred years.
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