Introduction. ix 



narrative eagerly the more marvellous that it was. 

 Anything in the nature of a traveller's ftory they 

 welcomed as readily as we mould diftruft it. 

 " Thus the crocodile from an egg growing up to 

 an exceeding magnitude, common conceit and 

 divers writers deliver, it hath no period of en- 

 creafe, but groweth as long as it liveth. And thus, 

 in brief, in moil apprehenfions the conceits of 

 men extend the confiderations of things, and 

 dilate their notions beyond the propriety of their 

 natures." (Sir T. Browne, " Vulgar Errors," 

 vii. 15.) 



It has often been queftioned whether Hero- 

 dotus was really impofed upon by the Egyptian 

 priefts or not. In either cafe the refult, fo far as 

 he is concerned, is the fame. Many of the 

 marvels in the " Odyfley " are exaggerations and 

 diftortions of merchants' and failors' narratives. 

 While they accepted all that was told them with- 

 out much queftioning or hefitation, the ancient 

 writers of natural hiftory never dreamt of tefting 

 any conclufion by obfervation, much more by ex- 

 periment. Pliny relates a thoufand marvels which 

 he might have omitted or modified had he taken 

 the trouble to confult nature. But a naturalift, 

 in his acceptation of the term, meant little more 

 than a compiler and tranfcriber. From this mif- 

 taken view, natural hiftorians among the ancients 

 were quick to follow previous writers, and it is 

 not furprifmg to find blunders and mifconceptions 

 thus repeated over and over again. No mufeums 

 or collections enabled them to correct wrong im- 



