April 3, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
557 
but the subsequent proceedings afford a chance 
of picturesque description too good to be lost. 
“And then one of the hunters cometh to him 
and beateth and smiteth him and pricketh him 
full sore, and then another hunter cometh and 
smiteth the first hunter and doth him (drive) 
away and defendeth the elephant and giveth him 
barley to eat.” This ingenious comedy of 
course fulfills its purpose. The good offices of 
the second hunter appeal to the generous in¬ 
stincts of the simple-minded elephant who hav¬ 
ing eaten barley thrice or four times — (this ap¬ 
peal to the tummy jars somewhat) — forthwith 
loves his defender and becomes mild and 
obedient to him. The thirteenth century ele¬ 
phant seems to have been as easily deluded as 
contemporary students of natural history. 
The method of carrying off tiger cubs, as de¬ 
scribed by Bartholomew, seems to touch a 
chord of reminiscence, but we must confess our 
inability at the moment to say how it appears 
familiar. The hunter, we are told, having taken 
the whelps from the den while the parents are 
out, carries them off and “leaveth in the way 
great mirrors and the mother followeth and 
findeth the mirrors in the way and looking on 
them seeth her own shadow and image therein, 
and weeneth that she seeth her children therein, 
and is long occupied therefore to deliver her 
children out of the mirror.” Which affords the 
crafty receiver of cubs time to get away to the 
ship he apparently always had in waiting for 
him. 
Is there not among Indian legends one to the 
effect that wolves will play with children before 
they kill them? We seem to recall something 
of the kind, and if so the legend was current in 
Bartholomew’s time. The curious inability of 
this beast to bend his neck backward, save and 
except during a May thunderstorm, was current 
lore for many centuries. Spirit of inquiry is 
roused by the elaborate strategy attributed to 
the leopard that singular creature “gendered in 
spouse-breach of a pard and of a lioness.” The 
den of the leopard, constructed by himself, was 
a cave with two entries, by one of which he 
went in, by the other came out. As protection 
against the lion the middle of the cave was made 
so “strait” that where the owner could pass, 
the larger lion would incontinently stick; so 
when the lion entered by one opening in pur¬ 
suit the leopard ran out at the other, came 
round and attacked in rear the lion fast 
jammed in the narrow tunnel, and, so says our 
authority “the leopard hath often in that wise 
the mastery of the lion by craft and not by 
strength—by guile and deceit in the den.’’ 
The power of imitating man’s voice in such 
manner that he could bring men out of their 
hoveys (hovels) and dogs from their kennel was 
attributed to the hyena. Those of us who know 
the vocal powers of this brute, can hardly regard 
it as a compliment; but the hyena was one of 
those animals around which the old legend 
makers loved to wreathe weird tales; and per¬ 
haps we can understand why the unlovely 
creature received this preference. It was Pliny 
by the way who gave the-stamp of currency to 
the statement that the hyena was of unstable 
sex, being now male, now female like the hare. 
Aristotle had denied this variability, and no 
doubt the point would have furnished valuable 
debating material to the natural history socie¬ 
ties of the times of these authorities. 
We might speculate without much profit con¬ 
cerning the germ of fact upon which Avicenna, 
the Arab doctor aforesaid, built up the monster 
“wonderly shapen” which was found in India, it 
was like to the bear in body and in hair, and 
to a man in face had a “right red head and a full 
great mouth and an horrible and in either jaw 
three rows of teeth: “outer limbs,” like those 
of a lion and a tail like a “wild scorpion with a 
sting,” A horrible voice, as the voice of a 
trumpet, had this monster who ran full swiftly 
and preyed on man. Discounting the dental 
and caudal embellishments which are very like 
those supplied ©ut of rich imagination to many 
beasts known by hearsay to our ancient teach¬ 
ers, may it not be that Avicenna, confused as to 
geography, was groping after the gorilla? It 
seems to come within the measure of possibility, 
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