Ball — Identification of the Animals and Plants of India. 3 
Lydekker^ among the bones of various animals obtained in the caves 
at Eilla Surgam, in Xarnul in tbe Madras Presidency, wliere remains 
of tbe Cynocephalus, or dog-faced baboon of Africa, which, is now 
extinct in India, were also obtained. 
It is just conceivable that the spotted hyena may have survived in 
India into the prehistoric period ; but the matter is rather of passing 
interest than importance, as there appears to be no necessity for de- 
monstrating that, in this instance, Ktesias really meant India, as was 
supposed by Lassen, who identified the hrohottas, I believe incorrectly, 
with the jackal. 
The Gryphon-, or Geifitn- (Tpvif/). 
Canis domesticus, var. Tihetanus. — Tibetan Mastiff. 
All the additional information which has been acquired confirms 
the supposition that the original idea of the griffin was suggested by 
the Tibetan mastiffs which guard the houses and diggings of the gold 
miners now, as they, in all probability, did in the time of Herodotus 
and Ktesias. 
I am enabled to exhibit an illustration of the griffin in the Ortus 
Sanitatisy^ as it was developed by the fancy of ^lian, and side by side 
with it a photograph of the Tibetan mastiff, which is now in the 
Zoological Gardens. Eoth, it will be observed, exhibit even still some 
points in common, especially as regards the massive limbs, and " claws 
like a lion's." 
Among superadded myths in connexion with the griffins, we are told 
that some of the tribes of JN'orthern Asia consider that the horns of the 
Tichorhitie rhinoceros, which are there found in a semi-fossil condition, 
were the talons of gigantic birds, and that MM. Ermann and Midden- 
dorf suppose that their discovery may have origiiiated the account 
of the griffins by Herodotus. This theory of its origin is now, per- 
haps, scarcely necessary. 
Since the above was written, Mr. Howorth's work on the Mammoth 
and the Flood has come to hand. In it he devotes several pages to 
the stories about the horns of the Tichorhine rhinoceros, and argues 
that the myth of the griffin was founded on the discovery of its re- 
mains in Northern Asia ; but I think it possible that the myth about 
the griffins may have been older than the theory as to the nature of 
the horns. Be that as it may, the description by Ktesias was, I main- 
tain, founded on the dogs. 
3 Records, Geol. Survey of India ^ vol. xix., 1886, p. 120. 
* De Serhis, Animalibus, ^c, Be Avibus, cap. Ivi. 
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