I. 



ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE 

 MAN-LIKE APES. 



Ancient traditions, when tested by the severe 

 processes of modern investigation, commonly 

 enough fade away into mere dreams: but it is sin- 

 gular how often the dream turns out to have been 

 a half -waking one, presaging a reality. Ovid fore- 

 shadowed the discoveries of the geologist: the At- 

 lantis was an imagination, but Columbus found a 

 western world: and though the quaint forms of 

 Centaurs and Satyrs have an existence only in the 

 realms of art, creatures approaching man more 

 nearly than they in essential structure, and yet as 

 thoroughly brutal as the goat's or horse's half of 

 the mythical compound, are now not only known, 

 but notorious. 



I have not met with any notice of one of these 

 Man-like Apes of earlier date than that con- 

 tained in Pigafetta's " Description of the king- 

 1G5 1 



