ORDER CARNASSIER. 245 



have given this animal such a perverse misnomer. How, 

 above all, could Pliny be ignorant of this synonyme, which 

 must still have been in use in his time ? For we find Ly- 

 bian Bears mentioned by contemporaneous writers — by 



Juvenal, 



" Nee profuit misero quod cominus Ursos 

 Figebat Numidas." — 



And by Martial, 



" Quod frenis Lybici domantur Ursi." 

 And long before by Virgil, 



-Acestes 



Horridus in jaculis et pelle Libystidis Ursae." 



Solinus, and among the moderns, Crinitus, Saumaise, Al- 

 drovandus, and Zimmerman, have taken the part of the old 

 annalist, and maintain the existence of the Bear in Africa, 

 though they allow that it has been seldom found. Solinus 

 even asserts that it is the handsomest of the Bears, clothed 

 with the longest hair, and is by far the most ferocious. 

 But the testimony of such an author, and even that of 

 Strabo, who asserts that there are Bears in Arabia, need 

 confirmation from more modern and authentic sources. 

 Shaw, indeed, mentions the existence of Bears in Barbary, 

 but does so in a simple enumeration of animals, without 

 saying any thing particular about them, and indeed without 

 appearing to have seen them. M. Desfontaines, who made 

 a long stay at Algiers, and surveyed Mount Atlas with no 

 small degree of care and accuracy, never saw any Bears in 

 that country, and only mentions in a vague manner that 

 there might be some in the forests in the environs of the 

 Calle. 



Prosper Alpin attributes Bears to Egypt, but such as 

 have no character of the animal. He talks of them as of 

 the size of a Sheep, and a whitish colour. None of the 



