For I am not of _Gesner_'s mind, _Sed veterum nullus_ (saith he[A])
_aliter de Pygmaeis scripsit, quam Homunciones esse_. Had they been a Race
of _Men_, no doubt but _Aristotle_ would have informed himself farther
about them. Such a Curiosity could not but have excited his Inquisitive
_Genius_, to a stricter Enquiry and Examination; and we might easily have
expected from him a larger Account of them. But finding them, it may be, a
sort of _Apes_, he only tells us, that in such a place these _Pygmies_
live.
[Footnote A: _Gesner. Histor. Quadruped._ p.m. 885.]
Herodotus[A] plainly makes them _Brutes_: For reckoning up the _Animals_
of _Libya_, he tells us, [Greek: Kai gar hoi ophies hoi hypermegathees,
kai hoi leontes kata toutous eisi, kai hoi elephantes te kai arktoi, kai
aspides te kai onoi hoi ta kerata echontes; kai hoi kynokephaloi
(akephaloi) hoi en toisi staethesi tous ophthalmous echontes (hos dae
legetai ge hypo libyon) kai agrioi andres, kai gynaikes agriai kai alla
plaethei polla thaeria akatapseusta;] i.
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