4. In Syria there are animals called hemioni which are different from those derived from a mixture of the horse and ass, though they resemble them in appearance. As the wild ass is named from its resemblance to the domestic kind, the wild asses and the hemioni differ from the domestic race in speed. These hemioni are derived from their own congeners, of which this is a proof. For some came to Phrygia in the time of Pharnaces, the father of Pharnabazus, and remain there still. There are now only three, though they say that at first there were nine.
1. The reproduction of mice is more wonderful than that of any other animal, both in number and rapidity. For a pregnant female was left in a vessel of corn; and after a short time the vessel was opened, and a hundred and twenty mice were counted. There is a doubt respecting the reproduction and destruction of the mice which live on the ground; for such an inexpressible number of field mice have sometimes made their appearance that very little food remained. Their power of destruction also is so great that some small farmers, having on one day observed that their corn was ready for harvest, when they went the following day to cut their corn, found it all eaten.
2. The manner of their disappearance also is unaccountable; for in a few days they all vanish, although beforehand they could not be exterminated by smoking and digging them out, nor by hunting them and turning swine among them to root up their runs. Foxes also hunt them out, and wild weasels[213] are very ready to destroy them; but they cannot prevail over their numbers and the rapidity of their increase, nor indeed can anything prevail over them but rain, and when this comes they disappear very soon.
[213] Perhaps ferret, Mustela varo, or weasel.
3. In a certain part of Persia the female fœtus of the mice are found to be pregnant in the uterus of their parent. Some people say and affirm that if they lick salt they become pregnant without copulation. The Egyptian mice have hair nearly resembling that of the hedgehog. There are other kinds which go upon two feet, for their fore feet are small and their hind feet large.[214] They are very numerous. There are also many other kinds of mice.