Bati—Ldentification of the Animals and Plants of India. 32% 
pace. It is hunted with horses and hounds, good to run. When it 
sees that it is on the point of being caught, it hides its tail in some 
near thicket, while it stands at bay, facing its pursuers, whom it 
watches narrowly. It even plucks up courage in a way, and thinks 
that since its tail is hid from view the hunters will not care to capture 
it, for it knows that its tail is the great object of attraction. But it 
finds this to be, of course, a vain delusion, for someone hits it with 
a poisoned dart, who then flays off the entire skin (for this is of 
value), and throws away the carcass, as the Indians make no use of 
any part of its flesh.” 
Kosmas describes it as ‘‘an animal of great size, belonging to India, 
and from it is got what is called the towpha, wherewith the captains of 
armies decorate their horses and their standards when taking the field. 
They say of it that if its tail be caught by a tree, it no longer stoops, 
but remains standing through its unwillingness to lose even a single 
hair. On seeing this, the people of the neighbourhood approach and 
eut off the tail, and then the creature flies off when docked entirely of 
its tail.’’ 
16. Tue Puarraers (®arrdyys). 
Manis pentadactyla, Linn (?)—The Pangolin. 
In Ailian’s elsewhere quoted account of the animals of India,“ which, 
from internal evidence, is considered by Schwanbeck, as pointed out by 
Mr. M‘Crindle, to have been largely borrowed from Megasthenes, the 
following passage occurs :— 
‘In India there is an animal closely resembling the land crocodile, 
and somewhere about the size of a little Maltese dog. Itis covered all 
over with a scaly skin, so rough altogether, and so compact, that when 
flayed off it is used by the Indiansas a file. It cuts through brass, and 
cuts iron. They call it the phattages.” It has been identified by Mr. 
M‘Crindle with the pangolin, or scaly ant-eater. This identification 
may, perhaps, be correct; but I must confess to some reluctance in 
accepting it, since the bajar kit, as it is called in Sanscrit and Hindo- 
stani, seems scarcely to answer the description so well as would one of 
the land lizards, Varanus, or the water lizards, Hydrosaurus. In any 
case, the statement that the skins are used as a file capable of cutting 
metals must be regarded as apocryphal. The scales and flesh are used 
medicinally by the natives, being supposed to possess aphrodisiac pro- 
perties. 
42 Hist. Anim., xvi. 11. (Cf. M‘Crindle’s Megasthenes, p. 164. 
43 De Mundo, xi. 
44 Hist. Anim., xvi. 6. Cf. M‘Crindle’s Megasthenes, p. 163. 
