_ Albert. Magn. de Animal. lib.
1. cap. 3. p.m. 3.]
Had _Albertus_ only asserted, that the _Pygmies_ were a sort of _Apes_,
his Opinion possibly might have obtained with less difficulty, unless he
could have produced some Body that had heard them talk. But _Ulysses
Aldrovandus_[A] is so far from believing his _Ape Pygmies_ ever spoke,
that he utterly denies, that there were ever any such Creatures in being,
as the _Pygmies_, at all; or that they ever fought the _Cranes_. _Cum
itaque Pygmaeos_ (saith he) _dari negemus, Grues etiam cum iis Bellum
gerere, ut fabulantur, negabimus, & tam pertinaciter id negabimus, ut ne
jurantibus credemus._
[Footnote A: _Ulys. Aldrovandi Ornitholog._ lib. 20. p.m. 344.]
I find a great many very Learned Men are of this Opinion: And in the first
place, _Strabo_[A] is very positive; [Greek: Heorakos men gar oudeis
exaegeitai ton pisteos axion andron;] i.e. _No Man worthy of belief did
ever see them_. And upon all occasions he declares the same. So _Julius
Caesar Scaliger_[B] makes them to be only a Fiction of the Ancients, _At
haec omnia_ (saith he) _Antiquorum figmenta & merae Nugae, si exstarent,
reperirentur.
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