quotes Cardanus as saying that the Cercopithecus or Wild-man, is singularly made, having the height and form of a man, with legs like man’s—and is covered all over with hair. No animal can withstand it, with the exception of man, to whom, when in its own regions, it is not inferior. It loves boys and women.
Pliny speaks of the Satyr Ape thus: “Among the mountainous districts of the eastern parts of India, in what is called the country of the Catharcludi, we find the Satyr, an animal of extraordinary swiftness. They go sometimes on four feet, and sometimes walk erect; they have, also, the features of a human being. On account of their swiftness, these creatures are never to be caught, except when they are aged, or sickly,” and, in another place, he says, “The Sphyngium and the Satyr stow away food in the pouches of their cheeks, after which they will take out piece by piece in their hands, and eat it.”
Topsell has mixed up the Simia Satyrus with the classical satyr, having legs and horns like goats; but he evidently alludes to the former in this passage. “The
Satyres are in the Islands Satiridæ, which are three in number, right over against India on the farther side of the Ganges; of which Euphemus Car rehearseth this history: that when he sailed unto Italy, by the rage of winde and evill weather, they were driven to a coast unnavigable, where were many desart Islandes, inhabited of wild men, and the marriners refused to land upon some Islands, having heretofore had triall of the inhumaine and uncivill behaviour of the inhabitants, so that they brought us to the Satyrian Islands, where we saw the inhabitants red, and had tayles joyned to their backs, not much lesse than horsses. These, being perceived by the marriners to run to the shippes, and lay hold on the women that were in them, the shipmen, for feare, took one of the Barbarian women, and set her on the land among them, whom in most odious and filthy manner, they abused, whereby they found them to be very bruit beasts.”
He gives us his idea of the Simia Satyrus, which must have been an accomplished animal, for not only could it, apparently, play upon the pipe, but it had a handy pouch for the reception of the fruit (in lieu of coppers) which it doubtless would receive as guerdon for its performance.
Satyrs.
He also mentions and delineates a curious Ape which closely resembles the classical Satyr: “Under the Equinoctiall, toward the East and South, there is a kind of Ape called Ægopithecus, an Ape like a Goate. For there are Apes like Beares, called Arctopitheci, and some like Lyons, called Leontopitheci, and some like Dogs, called Cynocephali, as is before expressed; and many other which have a mixt resemblance of other creatures in their members.
