74 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



though it does not change its sex every year, as 

 Pliny alleges*. Thus, also, the carnivorous bull is 

 perhaps nothing else than a two-horned rhinoceros 

 erroneously described. M. de Weltheim affirms 

 with probability, that the auriferous ants of He- 

 rodotus are corsacs. 



One of the most famous amongst these fabulous 

 animals of the ancients, is the unicorn. Even to 

 our own time people have obstinately persisted in 

 searching for it, or, at least, in seeking arguments 

 to prove its existence. Three several animals are 

 frequently mentioned by the ancients as having 

 only one horn in the middle of the forehead. The 

 African oryx, having cloven hoofs, the hair 

 placed in the contrary direction to that of other 

 animals f, equal in size to the bull \ 9 or even the 



account of the prodigious power of the muscles of its neck, 

 and the frequent use which it makes of them. When the 

 hyena has laid hold of any thing, it is easier to drag it along 

 by it than to wrest it from its jaws ; and it is this circum- 

 stance which has caused the Arabs to consider it as the em- 

 blem of invincible obstinacy. 



* It does not in reality change its sex, but it has an ori- 

 fice in the perineum, which might make it be supposed to 

 be hermaphrodite. 



t Arist. Anim. ii. 1. iii. 1. Plin. xl. 46. 

 t Herod, iv. 192. 



