Before quitting the subject of Apes, I cannot refrain from noticing another of this genus mentioned by Topsell, and that is the Arctopithecus or Bear Ape:—“There is in America a very deformed beast, which the inhabitants call Haut or Hauti, and the Frenchmen Guenon, as big as a great Affrican Monkey. His belly hangeth very low, his head and face like unto a childes, and being
taken, it will sigh like a young childe. His skin is of an ashe-colour, and hairie like a Beare: he hath but three clawes on a foote, as longe as foure fingers, and like the thornes of Privet, whereby he climbeth up into the highest trees, and for the most part liveth of the leaves of a certain tree, beeing of an exceeding heighth, which the Americans call Amahut, and thereof this beast is called Haut. Their tayle is about three fingers long, having very little haire thereon; it hath beene often tried, that though it suffer any famine, it will not eate the fleshe of a living man, and one of them was given me by a French-man, which I kept alive sixe and twenty daies, and at the last it was killed by Dogges, and in that time when I had set it abroad in the open ayre, I observed that, although it often rained, yet was that beast never wet.[28] When it is tame, it is very loving to a man, and desirous to climbe uppe to his shoulders, which those naked Amerycans cannot endure, by reason of the sharpnesse of his Clawes.”
Animal Lore.
We are indebted to Pliny for much strange animal lore—which, however, will scarcely bear the fierce light of modern investigation. Thus, he tells us of places in which certain animals are not to be found, and narrates some very curious zoological anecdotes thereon. “It is a remarkable fact, that nature has not only assigned different countries to different animals, but that even in the same country it has denied certain species to certain localities. In Italy, the dormouse is found in one part only, the Messian forest. In Lycia, the gazelle never passes beyond the mountains which border upon Syria;
nor does the wild ass in that vicinity pass over those which divide Cappadocia from Cilicia. On the banks of the Hellespont, the stags never pass into a strange territory, and, about Arginussa, they never go beyond Mount Elaphus; those upon the mountains, too, have cloven ears. In the island of Poroselene, the weasels will not so much as cross a certain road. In Bœotia, the moles, which were introduced at Lebadea, fly from the very soil of that country, while in the neighbourhood, at Orchomenus, the very same animals tear up all the fields. We have seen coverlets for beds made of the skin of these creatures, so that our sense of religion does not prevent us from employing these ominous animals for the purposes of luxury.
“When hares have been brought to Ithaca, they die as soon as ever they touch the shore, and the same is the case with rabbits, on the shores of the island of Ebusus; while they abound in the vicinity, Spain namely, and the Balearic isles. In Cyrene, the frogs were formerly dumb, and this species still exists, although croaking ones were carried over there from the Continent. At the present day, even, the frogs of the island of Seriphos are dumb; but when they are carried to other places, they croak; the same thing is also said to have taken place at Sicandrus, a lake of Thessaly. In Italy, the bite of a shrew-mouse is venomous; an animal which is not to be found in any region beyond the Apennines. In whatever country it exists, it always dies immediately if it goes across the rut made by a wheel. Upon Olympus, a mountain of Macedonia, there are no wolves, nor yet in the isle of Crete. In this island there are neither foxes nor bears, nor, indeed, any kind of baneful animal, with the exception of the phalangium, a species
of spider. It is a thing still more remarkable, that in this island there are no stags, except in the district of Cydon; the same is the case with the wild boar, the woodcock, and the hedgehog.”
He further tells us of animals which will injure strangers only, as also animals which injure the natives only.
“There are certain animals which are harmless to the natives of the country, but destroy strangers; such as the little serpents at Tirynthus, which are said to spring out of the earth. In Syria, also, and especially on the banks of the Euphrates, the serpents never attack the Syrians when they are asleep, and even if they happen to bite a native who treads upon them, their venom is not felt; but to persons of any other country they are extremely hostile, and fiercely attack them, causing a death attended with great torture. On this account the Syrians never kill them. On the contrary, on Latmos, a mountain of Caria, as Aristotle tells us, strangers are not injured by the scorpions, while the natives are killed by them.”