SCOT AT TOLEDO 51 



at least approximately, the composition of Scot's 

 version of the De Animalibus ad Caesar em. 



We have already remarked that the last two 

 chapters of the first book of the Physionomia sug- 

 gest that in compiling them the author had before 

 him an Arabic treatise on Natural History. A 

 natural conjecture leads us further to suppose that 

 this may have been the original from which he 

 translated the De Animalibus ad Caesar em,, and 

 this idea becomes a certainty when we pursue the 

 comparison a little more closely. Take for example 

 this curious passage from the Physionomia (Book i. 

 chap, ii.) : 'Incipiunt pili paulatim oriri in pectine 

 unitas quorum dicitur femur . . . item sibi vox 

 mutatur.' Its obscurity disappears when we confront 

 it with the corresponding words in the De Animalibus 

 ad Caesar em, and thus discover what was no doubt 

 the original source from which Scot derived it : 

 ' Incipiunt pili oriri in pectore Kameon alkaratoki, 

 et in isto tempore mutatur vox eius.' ^ There is no 

 need to extend the comparison any further than 

 this significant passage. Doubt may arise regarding 

 the depth and accuracy of Scot's knowledge of the 

 Arabic tongue, the nature of the text that lay 

 before him, or the reason he may have had for 

 retaining foreign words in the one version which he 

 translated in the other ; but surely this may be 

 regarded as now clearly established, that some part 

 of the first book of the Physionomia was derived by 

 compilation from the same text which appeared in 

 a Latin dress as the De Animalibus ad Caesarem, 

 and that this source was an Arabic one. 



This point settled, it becomes possible to establish 



' De Animalibus ad Caesarem, chap. ix. 



