102 
The Animal-Lore of ShaJcspeare’s Time. 
those great vessels made of goats skins, wherein they use to carry new 
wine in Median de Campom. The head of this beast is like the head 
of an oxe, with also like eyes, and hath in the place of armes, two great 
stumps wherewith he swimmeth: it is a very gentle and tame beast, 
and commeth oftentimes out of the water to the next shoare, where if 
he finde any herbes or grasse he feedeth thereof.” ( Purchas , vol. iii. 
pp. 931, 987.) 
This author is much perplexed by the mode by which 
the various species of animals, known and unknown, could 
have found their way to the Indies. As it was not likely 
that people should have taken the fiercer kinds in ships, 
and as they could not have swum from the mainland, he 
concludes that the old and new world were once united. 
A separate creation in a different part of' the world would 
destroy the value of Noah’s ark; moreover, the creation 
could not be completed in six days if there were yet other 
kinds to make. It follows then, according to Acosta— 
“ that those beasts, of whose kindes wee finde not any but at the 
Indies, have passed thither from this continent, as wee have said of 
other beasts that are knowne unto us. This supposed, I demand, how 
is it possible that none of their kinde should remayne here ? and how 
they are found there, being as it were travellers and strangers ? Truly 
it is a question that hath long held me in suspence. Wee must then 
say, that though all beasts came out of the arke, yet by a naturall 
instinct, and the providence of heaven, divers kindes dispersed them¬ 
selves into divers regions, where they found themselves so well as they 
would not part, or if they departed they did not preserve themselves, 
but in processe of time perished wholly, as we doe see it chance in 
many things.” (Page 964.) 
Robert Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy (vol. i. 
p. 497, ed. 1837), alludes to the difficulty suggested by 
the worthy Jesuit, but is equally at a loss to solve the 
problem of the distribution of species. He writes:— 
“ Why doth Africa breed so many venemous beasts, Ireland none ? 
Athens owles, Greet none? Why hath Daulis and Thebes no swal- 
lowes, so Pausanias informeth us, as well as the rest of Greece ?—Ithaca 
no hares, Pontus asses, Scythia swine? Whence come this variety of 
complections, colours, plants, birds, beasts, metals, peculiar almost to 
