OR ANIMALS WITH BLOOD. 259 



as the same animal as the modern Greek Nyphitsa, which 

 is a weasel or ferret. 



Aristotle credits the lion with much magnanimity and 

 courage ; he says, however, that there are two kinds of lions, 

 that one of these is not so courageous as the other, and that 

 an infuriated boar has been known to put a lion to flight.* 

 Like several modern writers, he does not seem to have 

 believed that the lion was undoubtedly bold and fierce. 



He asserts that, in his time, lions were found in Europe, 

 but only in the territory between the rivers Achelous and 

 Nessus.t Herodotus also mentions the existence of lions 

 between the Achelous and Nessus. I There are several other 

 passages in the ancient authors tending to show that lions 

 lived in southern Europe in historic times, but it is not 

 known when they became extinct there. 



The MarticJiora, called Mantichora in some texts, is 

 described by Aristotle on the authority of Ctesias. According 

 to this description, it was a wild, fleet animal living in India 

 and eating human flesh; it had feet like those of a lion, and 

 was as large as that animal ; its body was red, and its eyes 

 were blue ; its tail was like that of a scorpion and bristled 

 with spines ; and, in each jaw, there were three rows of 

 teeth. 



According to JElian, Ctesias says that he once saw a 

 Martichora which had been sent from India as a present to 

 the King of Persia. || It may be added, in justice to yElian, 

 that he properly questions whether Ctesias was a fitting wit 

 ness to things of this kind. The Martichora was largely a 

 creature of the imagination. Sundevall fancied he saw, in 

 Ctesias description, the outlines of some fantastic and badly 

 executed image or painting, representing a strange being of 

 Hindu mythology. 11 Gesner describes it in a passage 

 between his description of the hyaena and the porcupine, 

 and preferred to believe that it was not a tiger.** Pausanias 

 believed that it was a tiger, tt and it is probable that the 

 description, given by Ctesias, is a distorted account of a 

 Bengal tiger, an animal regarded with almost superstitious 

 dread by the Hindus. 



The Emjdris or otter, according to Aristotle, obtains its 



* H. A. ix. c. 31, s. 3. f Ibid. vi. c. 28, s. 1, viii. c. 27, s. 6. 



I vii. 126. H. A. ii. c. 3, s. 10. 



|| De Nat. Anim. iv. 21. 



T Die Thierarten des Aristoteles, 1863, p. 90. 

 ** Hist. Anim. i. 1551, p. 631. ff Desc. of Greece, ix. 21, 4. 



