84 THE PIGMIES. 



" Their dissonant clamours, while o'er the Ocean stream, 



" They steer their course and, on their pinions, bear 



" Battle and death to the Pygmcean race." (*) 



The land of the Pigmies is not mentioned in this passage. Ho- 

 mer, however, was certainly acquainted with the migrations o£ the 

 cranes ; he knew that they pass every year from Europe to Africa 

 and vice versa; ( 2 ) and as these birds only meet their enemies after 

 having crossed the sea in order to escape the severity of the winter, 

 it is evident that it is some place in Africa that the poet has fixed as the 

 abode of these dwarfs supposed to be too small and feeble to resist 

 the attack of their winged invaders. 



Although Aristotle speaks of the Pigmies with regard to the natural 

 history of cranes, yet he says nothing of the supposed combats 

 which have furnished Homer with his illustration. It may be 

 asserted that he did not believe it. This is what he says : " The 

 '•' cranes pass from the plains of Scythia to the marshes of Upper 

 " Egypt, near the source of the Nile. This is the district which 

 " is inhabited by the Pigmies, the existence of whom is no fable. 

 " They are really, as has been reported, a race of men of small 

 " stature, and their horses are small also. They spend their life 

 " in caverns." (History of Animals.) 



Though not as explicit as might be desired, Aristotle here dis" 

 penses with the exaggerations about the small size of the Pigmies, 

 for there is a great difference between men of small stature, as 

 he styles them, and miniature human beings among whom cranes 

 are able to bear battle and death. In other respects, the founder 

 of Natural Sciences may be said to have been on the track of what 

 appears to us at the present day to be the truth. 



He places the habitat of the Pigmies near the sources of the 

 Nile, and, in fact, it was when travelling in the general direction of 

 that river that Schweinfurth discovered the race of diminutive 

 men of whom we shall speak later on. However, Aristotle places 



(i) Translation of the Earl of Derby, p. 81. 



( 2 ) AbBuffox rightly remarks, it is these alternate migrations, in opposite 

 directions, which caused the ancients to call the crane "the Bird of Lybia" 

 as well as "the Bird of Scyihia." (BUYFOX—History of Birds ; the Crane.) 



