Note 045 The want of an English name obliges me to refer to the common genus of squirrels, the Latin glis, the French loir; a little animal who inhabits the woods and remains torpid in cold weather (see Plin. Hist. Natur. viii. 82; Buffon, Hist. Naturelle tom. viii. 158; Pennant's Synopsis of Quadrupeds p. 289). The art of rearing and fattening great numbers of gliers was practised in Roman villas as a profitable article of rural economy (Varro, de Re Rustica, iii. 15). The excessive demand of them for luxurious tables was increased by the foolish prohibitions of the censors; and it is reported that they are still esteemed in modern Rome, and are frequently sent as presents by the Colonna princes (see Brotier, the last editor of Pliny, tom. ii. p. 458 apud Barbou, 1779).

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The History Of The Decline and Fall Of The Roman Empire— Chapter 31