[926] In many of the warmer climates, where the locusts are of large size and in great abundance, they are occasionally used as food; but we have no reason to believe that they constitute the sole, or even the principal article of the food of any tribe or people.—B.
[927] In warm climates, the females arrive at maturity considerably earlier than in the more temperate regions, but the age here mentioned is an exaggeration. The female also, in such climates, ceases to bear at an earlier age, probably before the fortieth year.—B.
[928] This is the Island of Ceylon, of which Pliny has given an account in the last Book, c. 24.
[929] Such unnatural unions may have taken place occasionally, but nothing has ever been produced from them.—B.
[930] This is a still greater exaggeration than that mentioned above, in Note 95.—B.
[931] Cuvier remarks that this story must have been originally told with reference to the race of large apes. He says, however, that some men have the “os coccygis” greatly prolonged, and mentions a painter of celebrity in Paris who had this malformation. “But from this to an actual tail,” says he, “the distance is very great.” In these times we have the (perhaps doubtful) account by M. de Couret, of the Niam Niams, a race in Abyssinia or Nubia, with tails at least two inches in length. Few will fail to recollect Lord Monboddo’s theory, that mankind originally had tails, but wore them off in lapse of time by climbing up the trees.
[932] As far as there is any truth in this account, it must refer to certain kinds of apes: but with respect to the size of the ears, it is, of course, greatly exaggerated.—B.
[933] Or Cophes, see B. vi. c. [25].
[934] There are many tribes who live on the sea-coast, and who inhabit a barren country, with a bad climate, whose diet is almost confined to fish, and who feed their cattle on it. This is the case in some parts of Iceland, and even, to a certain extent, among the people of the Hebrides.—B.