De sollertia animalium

These matters, though wonderful, are less surprising than are those creatures which have cognition of number and can count,[*](Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. iv. 53.) as do the cattle near Susa. At that place they irrigate the royal park with water raised in buckets by wheels, and the number of bucketfuls is prescribed. For each cow raises one hundred bucketfuls each day, and more you could not get from her, even if you wanted to use force. In fact, they often try to add to the number to see; but the cow balks and will not continue when once she has delivered her quota, so accurately does she compute and remember the sum, as Ctesias[*](Frag. 53 b, ed. Gilmore (p. 196); Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. vii. 1.) of Cnidus has related.

The Libyans laugh at the Egyptians for telling a fabulous tale about the oryx,[*](See Mair on Oppian, Cyn. ii. 446.) that it lets out a cry[*](A sneeze, according to Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 107; Aelian, De Natura Animal. vii. 8.) at that very day and hour when the star rises that they call Sothis,[*](Cf. Mor. 359 d, 376 a.) which we call the Dog Star or Sirius. At any rate, when this star rises flush with the sun, practically all the goats turn about and look toward the east; and this is the most certain sign of its return and agrees most exactly with the tables of mathematical calculation.[*](They watched for the first sight of Sirius before daybreak about June 20; the date shifted in the Egyptian calendar.)