iqJ8 APPENDIX. 



out difplaying a great deal of learning to tell him what it 

 is not, I mail content myfelf with informing him what it 

 is, by a good figure and diftinct relation of what in his 

 hiftory hath been unknown, or omitted, and put it in 

 the reader's power to reject any of the pretended Hy- 

 aenas that authors or travellers mould endeavour to im- 

 pofe upon him. At the fame time, I fhall fubmit to his 

 decifion, whether the animal I mention is a new one, or 

 only a variety of the old, as it muft on all hands be allow- 

 ed that he is as yet undefcribed. 



Most of the animals confounded with him are about 

 fix times fmaller than he is, and fome there are that do not 

 even ufe their four legs, but only two. The want of a 

 critical knowledge in the Arabic language, and of natural 

 hiftory at the fame time, has in fome meafure been the oc- 

 cafion of this among the moderns. Bochart * difcufies 

 the feveral errors of the ancients with great judgment, and 

 the Count de Buffon f , in a very elegant and pleafant man- 

 ner, hath nearly exhaufted the whole. 



I do not think there is any one that hath hitherto writ- 

 ten of this animal who ever faw the thoufandth part of 

 them that I have. They were a plague in Abyfnnia in eve- 

 ry fituation, both in the city and in the field, and I think 

 furpafifed the fheep in number. Gondar was full of them 

 from the time it turned dark till the dawn of day, feeking 

 the different pieces of flaughtered carcafes which this cruel 



and 



* Bach, vol, I. cao. xxxiii. f Buffon vol. IX. 4*0. 



