APPENDIX. i 3J 



the firft cafe, he overlooked this animal's ears ; in the fecund, 

 he did not perceive that he had a tail. 



The Arabs who conquered Egypt, and very foon after 

 the reft of Africa, the tyranny and fanatical ignorance of 

 the Khalifat of Omar being oyerpaft, became all at once 

 excellent obfervers. They addicted themfelves with won- 

 derful application to all forts of fcience ; they became very 

 fkilful phylicians, aftronomers, and mathematicians ; they 

 applied in a particular manner, and with great fuccefs, to 

 natural hiilory, and being much better acquainted with 

 their country than we are, they were, in an efpecial man- 

 ner, curious in the accounts of its productions. They paid 

 great attention in particular to the animals whofe figures 

 and parts are defcribed in the many books they have left 

 us, as alfo their properties, manners, their ufes in medicine 

 and commerce, are let down as diftinctly and plainly as 

 words alone could do. Their religion forbade them the ufe 

 of drawing; this is the fource of the confufion that has hap- 

 pened, and this is the only advantage we have over them. 



T believe there are very few remarkable animals, either 

 in Africa or Arabia, that are not Hill to be found defcribed in 

 fome Arabian author, and it is doing the public little fer- 

 vice, when, from vanity, we fubftitute crude imaginations of 

 our own in place of the obfervations of men, who were na- 

 tives of the country, in perpetual ufe of feeing, as living with 

 the animals which they defcribed. There cannot, I think, 

 be a ftrongerinftance of this, than in the fubjeet now be- 

 fore us ; notwithftanding what has been as confidently as 

 ignorantly afTerted, I will venture to affirm, that this ani- 

 mal, fo far from being unknown is particularly defcribed in all 



T 2 the 



