THE ZOOLOGY OF HERODOTUS 



He must be a man of dull appreciation who fails 

 to give a due meed of admiration to the historian 

 of Halicarnassus ; and yet this most charming 

 and genial of classical writers labours under 

 grave imputations of want of accuracy in several 

 particulars, to the extent that some have pleas- 

 antly called him "the Father of Lies." It is 

 not my intention here to endeavour to vindicate 

 his character as an historian, or to draw odious 

 comparisons between him and the presumably 

 veracious Thucydides, but briefly to pass in 

 review some of his zoological statements, which 

 have usually been held to indicate a preposterous 

 gullibility on his part. 



We cannot, perhaps, commence better than 

 with his account of the crocodile ; and, consider- 

 ing this calmly, it cannot be said to be by any 

 means an absurd narration. The only glaring 

 inaccuracy in it is the statement that the reptile 

 cannot see under water ; the old belief that it 

 moved the upper, and not the under, jaw, is 

 countenanced by appearances, if not by anatomy. 

 But — mark the danger of a universal condemna- 

 tion — commentators have gone on to scoff at the 



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