HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



167 



ro, Pliny ( £), and other authors. The frogs depopu- 

 lated one place in Gaul, and the locufls another in Af- 

 rica. One of the Cyclades, was depopulated by mice ; 

 Amiclas, near to Taracina, by ferpents ; another place, 

 near to Ethiopia, by fcorpions and poifonous ants ; and 

 another by fcolopendras; and not fodiftant from our own 

 times, the Mauritius was going to have been abandoned 

 on account of the extraordinary multiplication of rats, 

 as we can remember to have read in a French author. 



With refpeft to the fize of the infe&s, reptiles, and 

 fuch animals, M. de Paw makes ufe of the teftimony 

 of Mr. Dumont, who, in his Memoirs on Louifiana, 

 fays, that the frogs are fo large there that they weigh 

 thirty-feven French pounds, and their horrid croaking 

 imitates the bellowing of cows. But who can truft to 

 that author, particularly after knowing what Mr. de 

 Paw fays, (in his anfwer to Don Pernetty, cap. 17.) 

 that all thofe who have written about Louifiana from He- 

 nepin, Le Clerc, and Cav. Tonti, to Dumont, have 

 contradicted each other fometimes on one and fometimes 

 on another fubjecT:. We wonder however, that M. de 

 Paw fliould have had the boldnefs to write that thefe 

 monfters do not exift in the reft of the world. We know 

 extremely well that there are neither in the old nor new 

 continent frogs of thirty-feven pounds in weight ; but 

 there are in Alia and Africa ferpents, butterflies, ants, 

 and other animals of fuch monftrous fize, that they ex- 

 ceed all thofe which have been difcovered in the new 

 world. In what place of America has a ferpent of fifty 

 Roman cubits in length been feen, fuch as that which 

 was (hewn by Auguftus to the Roman people at the pub- 

 lic fpe&acles, as hiftorians affirm (/), or fo grofs as that 



which 



( k ) Pliny Hilt Natur. lib. viii. cap. 19. ( / ) Suetonius in O&aviano Casfarc. 



