CURIOUS CREATURES. 



27 



about the Pygmies and Cranes. The accompanying 

 illustration is from a fresco at Pompeii. 



Aristotle says that they lived in holes under the 

 earth, and came out in the harvest time with hatchets, 

 to cut down the corn, as if to fell a forest, and went on 

 goats and lambs of proportionable stature to themselves 

 to make war against certain birds, called Cranes by 



some, which came there yearly from Scythia to plunder 

 them. Pliny mentions them several times, but especially 

 in B. 7, c. 2. " Beyond these people, and at the very 

 extremity of the mountains, the Trispithami, 1 and the 



1 From Tpeis, three, ffiri6a.fJ.at, spans. 



