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H.'s good sense suggests the difficulty that animals protected so strictly would multiply unduly, and to meet this he accepts an explanation which, though fictitious in itself, is based on two rightly observed natural facts; these are that it might be thought, from the noise she makes, that the process of impregnation is painful to a she-cat, and that tom-cats do in some cases kill their young, if they seem to attract the mother's attention too much.


It is quite true that cats will run into a burning house.


ἐσάλλονται . . . ταῦτα δὲ γινόμενα. This should either be a genitive absolute or the sentence should end τοῖς Αἰγυπτίοις ἐστι; but the events described in the participle γινόμενα and in the verb καταλαμβάνει are looked on as identical (cf. vii. 157. 2 ἁλὴς μὲν κτλ.).


ξυρῶνται: H. forgets his own generalization (36. 1) that the Egyptians, unlike other men, let their hair grow in bereavement.

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