CRANES. 3G9 



According to Pliny, these little men were armed with 

 arrows, and mounted on rams ; they abode in the mountains of 

 India, and came down every spring to wage war against the 

 Cranes , whose sole object was to exterminate the Pygmies. The 

 Roman naturalist fancies that they succeeded in this destruc- 

 tive aim, for the town of Gerania, which even in his time was 

 ruined and deserted, was formerly, he asserts, inhabited by a 

 race of Pygmies, who were driven out by the Cranes. In the 

 views of modern commentators, these Pygmies were nothing but 

 monkeys, which assemble in large troops in the forests of Africa 

 and India, and always manifest hostility to birds. 



The Greeks have also invented two stories about Cranes, which 

 are certainly very ingenious, but result from the error of attri- 

 buting too much importance to trifles. They say Cranes carry 

 a pebble in their mouths when they cross Mount Taurus, so 

 that they are compelled to keep mute ; they thus avoid exciting 

 the attention of the Eagles inhabiting those districts, which birds 

 are much disposed to do them mischief. In the same way, the 

 Crane which is placed as sentinel to watch over his sleeping com- 

 panions is bound to stand on one leg, and carry a stone in the 

 other claw, so that if he allows himself to be overtaken by slumber, 

 the fall of the pebble would wake him up. It was, as we are 

 aware, the expedient of the youthful Aristotle to hold an iron 

 ball suspended over a metal basin in order to wake himself 

 if he succumbed to sleep. We shall, I think, ascribe too 

 much ingenuity to the Crane in imputing to it an action of 

 Aristotle's. 



The members of this interesting feathered tribe were said to 

 possess certain virtues. The thigh bone of a Crane imparted to 

 him who possessed it remarkable vigour and elasticity of limb. 

 Its brain also was a kind of love-philtre ; it transformed the 

 ugliest man into a perfect Adonis, and won for him the favour of 

 the fair. 



It is, moreover, to the Crane that the Greeks are indebted for 

 one of their favourite dances. Be it understood that we are now 

 returning to plain matter of fact. The games and dances which 

 Cranes indulge in amongst themselves are not mere idle stories ; 

 observers of our own day, well worthy of credit, have proved their 



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