PLATE LVII. 



term Troglodytse.* It may therefore be concluded that Linnseiis 

 has left us upon the authority of Bontius principally, a supposed 

 species of man, to which he assigns the name of Homo Troglodytes, 

 and thus it stands in the latest memorial of the labours of that 

 celebrated Naturalist, the twelfth edition of Systeraa Naturse. 



It is manifestly of the very first importance to the cause of 

 science, to ascertain the truth of this authority. This is not entirely 

 in our power, but if our observations tend to place it in a progressive 

 course of investigation, the science will derive at least some small 

 advantage from our inquiry. The general impression is that this, 

 animal of Bontius has no other basis than the exaggerated relations 

 of an Orang-Outang, but which of these two species we are left in 

 doubt, because those writers who are the most forward to condemn 

 Linnaeus for yielding credence to these fictions or exaggerations, as 



* Troglodytae specus excavant. Hae illis domus ; victus serpentium 

 carnes ; stridorque non vox : adeo sermonis commercio carent. — The 

 Troglodytes of Pliny are one of the many tribes of men who were said in 

 his time to inhabit Ethiopia, and of whom Diodorus Siculus gives some 

 description. In those ages the Ethiopians and the Egyptians, as it is related 

 by the classic writers, subsisted according to their sect upon particular kinds 

 of food, and it is asserted that these Troglodytes fed on the flesh of serpents. 

 But fruits, and not serpents, are the natural food of the Orang-Outangs : 

 neither do they dig caves for their dwellings, so far as we know they live in 

 trees. The want of voice or speech for conversation, as in man, is the only 

 probable indication of their alliance with the Orangs ; and this, if so, must 

 be from its habitat the Black Orang, and not the kind found at Java and 

 Amboina. 



genus, if not the same species. Do we in this instance recognize a trait of some pre- 

 vailing fable of the remotest ages, the origin of which is lost, but of which this trait 

 remains ? The coincidence at least is singular. Can this be the " sacred fish " of the 

 Phoenicians, and of the pelasgiac world ? 



