Читать книгу Curious Creatures in Zoology - Ashton John - Страница 14

Of curious animals, other than Apes, depicted as having some approach to the human countenance, perhaps the most curious is the Manticora. It is not a parvenu; it is of ancient date, for Aristotle mentions it. Speaking of the dentition of animals, he says: – “None of these genera have a double row of teeth. But, if we may believe Ctesias, there are some which have this peculiarity, for he mentions an Indian animal called Martichora, which had three rows of teeth in each jaw; it is as large and rough as a lion, and has similar feet, but its ears and face are like those of a man; its eye is grey, and its body red; it has a tail like a land Scorpion, in which there is a sting; it darts forth the spines with which it is covered, instead of hair, and it utters a noise resembling the united sound of a pipe and a trumpet; it is not less swift of foot than a stag, and is wild, and devours men.”

Pliny also quotes Ctesias, but he slightly diverges, for he says it has azure eyes, and is of the colour of blood; he also affirms it can imitate the human speech. Par parenthèse he mentions, in conjunction with the Manticora, another animal similarly gifted: – “By the union of the hyæna with the Æthiopian lioness, the Corocotta is produced, which has the same faculty of imitating the voices of men and cattle. Its gaze is always fixed and immoveable; it has no gums in either of its jaws, and the teeth are one continuous piece of bone; they are enclosed in a sort of box, as it were, that they may not be blunted by rubbing against each other.”

Mais, revenons à nos moutons, or rather Mantichora. Topsell, in making mention of this beast, recapitulates all that Ctesias has said on the subject, and adds: – “And I take it to be the same Beast which Avicen calleth Marion, and Maricomorion, with her taile she woundeth her Hunters, whether they come before her or behinde her, and, presently, when the quils are cast forth, new ones grow up in their roome, wherewithal she overcometh all the hunters; and, although India be full of divers ravening beastes, yet none of them are stiled with a title of Andropophagi, that is to say, Men-eaters; except onely this Mantichora. When the Indians take a Whelp of this beast, they fall to and bruise the buttockes and taile thereof, so that it may never be fit to bring (forth) sharp quils, afterwards it is tamed without peril. This, also, is the same beast which is called Leucrocuta, about the bignesse of a wilde Asse, being in legs and hoofes like a Hart, having his mouth reaching on both sides to his eares, and the head and face of a female like unto a Badgers. It is also called Martiora, which in the Parsian tongue, signifieth a devourer of men.”

Du Bartas, in “His First Week, or the Birth of the World,” mentions our friend as being created: —

It is mentioned by other writers – but I have a theory of my own about it, and that is, that it is only an idealised laughing hyæna.