IX. 



MEDIAEVAL NOTIONS OF INDIAN NATURAL 

 HISTORY. 



A N old translation of the Abbe de Guyon's book on the 

 ^~* East Indies has recently fallen into my hands. One 

 chapter of this work is devoted to the animals of the Indies. 

 This chapter, in addition to being most entertaining reading, 

 is instructive as showing how far natural history lagged be- 

 hind other knowledge in the i8th century. The translation 

 was published in 1757, and, with the exception of those por- 

 tions dealing with natural history, is fairly accurate. The 

 zoological part of the work, indeed, consists chiefly of quo- 

 tations from Pliny and other veracious classical authors. 

 As might be expected, the Abbe devotes much space to the 

 elephant, and the tall stories which he relates regarding 

 that sagacious quadruped are worthy of any Yankee. One of 

 the best, which even the Abbe finds it difficult to believe, 

 describes how an elephant perceiving his master was cov- 

 ered with wounds, lowered himself in the battlefield in 

 order to let his master down without hurting him, and then 

 proceeded to pull out with his trunk the arrows " with which 

 he was all stuck over ; " but, seeing that his master was 

 losing all his blood, the elephant carried him back to the 

 camp. The only parallel to the next story is that of the 

 horse advertised for sale, and which, among other accom- 

 plishments, was able to play the piano ; but this horse was a 

 fool to the elephant which Mutianus, " thrice Consul of 

 Rome, " saw. This animal knew the Greek characters, and 

 wrote down the words spoken to him by picking out and 

 arranging the letters. This elephant was by no means an 

 exceptional one, for the Roman Consul tells of another who, 

 having been severely punished by his master because he 

 could not retain his lessons, passed the whole night in a 

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