Chap. 30.] 
THE LYNX, ETC. 
279 
which has brown hair and two mammge on the breast, as well 
as many monstrous kinds of a similar nature ; horses with 
■wings, and armed with horns, which are called pegasi the 
crocotta, an animal which looks as though it had been produced 
by the union of the wolf and the dog,^^ for it can break any 
thing with its teeth, and instantly on swallowing it digest it 
with the stomach ; monkeys, too, with black heads, the hair 
of the ass, and a voice quite unlike that of any other animal/^ 
There are oxen, too, like those of India, some with one horn, 
and others with three ; the leucrocotta, a wild beast of extra- 
ordinary swiftness, the size of the wild ass, with the legs of 
a stag, the neck, tail, and breast of a lion, the head of a badger, 
a cloven hoof, the mouth slit up as far as the ears, and one con- 
tinuous bone instead of teeth it is said, too, that this animal 
can imitate the human voice. Among the same people, there 
is also found an animal called eale ; it is the size of the river- 
horse, has the tail of the elephant, and is of a black or tawny 
naeus : it is common in many parts of Asia and Africa, in the retired 
forest districts, and still exists in the Pyrenees and the mountains of 
Naples. — B. 
*6 As far as the accounts of the sphinx are to be regarded as not en- 
tirely fabulous, we must suppose it to have originated in some species of 
the monkey tribe ; perhaps the Simia troglodytes or chimpanze. — B, 
^7 Of course the winged horse is an imaginary being, nor does it appear 
what is the origin of the fable ; the horns are an unusual appendage to 
the pegasus. — B. The pegasus and the rhinoceros together may have 
given rise to that fabulous animal, the unicorn. See, however, the Mono- 
ceros, mentioned in c. 31. 
Although a hybrid animal is produced by the union of the wolf and 
the dog, it does not form a permanent species. But, as Cuvier remarks, 
by the insertion of velut/' Pliny seems to imply that the crocotta unites 
the physical properties of the two animals. Ctesias, Indie, c. 32, gives an 
account of the cynolycus, or dog- wolf," from which Pliny seems to have 
taken his crocotta. — B. 
It does not seem possible to determine what species of monkey is 
here designated; it is most probable that he himself had no accurate 
knowledge. — B. 
50 We may here refer to the judicious remarks of Cuvier, Ajasson, vol. 
vi. pp. 427, 428, and Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 399, on the leucrocotta. It 
seems impossible to identify Pliny's description with any known animal, and 
it is not unlikely that he has confused the accounts of authors who were 
speaking of different animals. Some of the characteristics of the leucro- 
cotta agree with those of the Indian antelope, while others seem to re- 
semble those of the hysena. — B. 
