THE PIGMIES 



OE 



HOMER, HERODOTUS, ARISTOTLE, PLINY, ETC.; 



THE ASIATIC PIGMIES, OR NEGRITOS ; 

 THE NEGRILLOS, OR AFRICAN PIGMIES.* 



BY 



A. de QUATREFAGES, f.k.s., 



Membre de VInstltut, Professeur au Museum d'Histoire Natwelle, 



TRANSLATED BY 



J. ERRINGTON de la CROIX. 



I. 



HERE is probably no nation, no tribe of the human race, 

 that has not believed in the existence of men of a stature 

 ^IJJ more or less diminutive, and that has not made them play 

 iU\ a P art i n ^ s legends. One knows that the Greeks did 

 1 not escape the common law, and that Homer has bor- 

 rowed from traditions, which were no doubt of a date anterior to 

 himself, the beginning of the third chapter of the Iliad : — 



" When by their sev'ral chiefs the troops were rang'd 

 " With noise and clamour, as a flight of birds, 

 " The men of Troy advanced ; as when the cranes, 

 " Flying the wintry storms, send forth on high 



* This paper was published in the Journal des Savants, Fevrier, 1881, and 

 Juin, 1882. 



