00 THE PIGMIES. 



ly, the marginal notes made by him on a copy o£ Pliny belonging 

 to the Institute Library, are evidently of very old date. In 

 all probability, they were written long before the discoveries of 

 which I shall have to speak hereafter. ( x ) In fact, the most valu- 

 able and accurate information that has reached us, has come since 

 his death (1873) ; he was consequently unable to make use of it, 

 to throw a light on the statement of the author on whom he com- 

 meuted. 



Although we cannot now-a-days accept the hypothesis at which 

 be arrived, I will nevertheless say a few words about it ; it 

 is always interesting to know what has been the opinion, on a diffi- 

 cult subject, of a mind not only ingenious and keen in itself, but 

 supported by extensive and varied learning. 



For KoulijN", at the time he wrote his remarks, the Pigmies of 

 the ancients were our circumpolar populations. Although his 

 annotations do not actually say so, yet it is beyond doubt that the 

 small stature of several of these tribes must have been the starting 

 point of this interpretation. It is well known that the Laplanders 

 were, for a long time, regarded as the smallest race on earth ; cer- 

 tain Esquimaux vie with them in this respect, and are even smaller. 

 ( 2 ) Prom this, to see in them the dwarfs of the old legend, is but 

 one step. 



As for the question of abode, it could not stop K-oulln. Have 

 not the Pigmies been placed in Thrace and Scythia as well as in 

 Asia and Africa ? Moreover, certain peculiarities of custom render 

 the identification still more complete. The writer reminds us that, 

 like Pliny's dwarfs, some of the northern populations live alter- 

 nately, during the year, ojl the seaside and inland; it is also for the 

 special purpose of eating the eggs of aquatic birds, of which they 

 destroy an immense number, that these tribes emigrate to the coast. 



As for the statement made by the Eoman writer with regard to 

 the Pigmies' huts, it might easily be explained : u It may be," says 

 E/OUlin, " that, in the original tradition, these huts, instead of 

 " being built of mud and egg-shells, were simply made of earth 



(1) These notes are written in pencil. The writing is very laboured and in 

 many places almost rubbed out. 



(a) I shall have occasion, later on, to give comparative figures of some 

 of these small races. 



