CURIOUS CREATURES. 



the face is very round, yet sharp and piked, having the 

 beasts of women, and their favor, or visage, much like 

 them : In that part of the body which is bare with out 

 haire, there is a certaine red thing rising in a round 

 circle, like millet seed, which giveth great grace & 

 comeliness to their coulour, 

 which in the middle part 

 is humaine : Their voice 

 is very like a man's, but 

 not articulate, sounding as 

 if one did speake hastily, 

 with indignation or sorrow. 

 Their haire browne, or 

 swarthy coulour. They are 

 bred in India, and Ethiopia. 

 In the promontory of the 

 farthest Arabia neere Dira, 

 are Sphinges, and certaine 

 Lyons, called Fornticce, so, likewise, they are to be found 

 amongest the Trogloditce. 



11 As the Babouns and Cynocephali are more wilde than 

 other Apes, so the Satyres and Sphynges are more 

 meeke and gentle, for they are not so wilde that they 

 will not bee tamed, nor yet so tame, but they will re- 

 venge their own harmes ; as appeared by that which was 

 slayne in a publike spectacle among the Thebanes. They 

 carrye their meat in the store houses of their own chaps 

 or cheeks, taking it forth when they are hungry, and so 

 eat it. 



" The name of this Sphynx is taken from ' binding/ 

 as appeareth by the Greek notation, or else of delicacie 

 and dainty nice loosnesse, (wherefore there were certain 

 common strumpets called Sphincta>, and the Megarian 

 Sphingas was a very popular phrase for notorious harlots), 



