Curious Creatures in Zoology. Ashton John

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СКАЧАТЬ They do not stand confinement well, being languid and miserable – but, in their native wildness, they can, if necessity arises, fight well in their own defence. A. R. Wallace, in his “Malay Archipelago; the Land of the Orang Utan and the Bird of Paradise,” tells the following story of its combativeness.

      “A few miles down the river there is a Dyak house, and the inhabitants saw a large orang feeding on the young shoots of a palm by the river side. On being alarmed, he retreated towards the jungle, which was close by, and a number of the men, armed with spears and choppers, ran out to intercept him. The man who was in front, tried to run his spear through the animal’s body, but the orang seized it in his hands, and in an instant got hold of the man’s arm, which he seized in his mouth, making his teeth meet in the flesh above the elbow, which he tore and lacerated in a dreadful manner. Had not the others been close behind, the man would have been seriously injured, if not killed, as he was quite powerless; but they soon destroyed the creature with their spears and choppers. The man remained ill for a long time, and never fully recovered the use of his arm.”

      It is called the Simia Satyrus; probably on its presumed lustfulness, certainly not on account of its resemblance to the satyr of antiquity.

      Gesner gives us his idea of the orang, presenting us with the accompanying figure of the Cercopithecus, and quotes Cardanus as saying that the Cercopithecus or Wild-man, is singularly made, having the height and form of a man, with legs like man’s – and is covered all over with hair. No animal can withstand it, with the exception of man, to whom, when in its own regions, it is not inferior. It loves boys and women.

      Pliny speaks of the Satyr Ape thus: “Among the mountainous districts of the eastern parts of India, in what is called the country of the Catharcludi, we find the Satyr, an animal of extraordinary swiftness. They go sometimes on four feet, and sometimes walk erect; they have, also, the features of a human being. On account of their swiftness, these creatures are never to be caught, except when they are aged, or sickly,” and, in another place, he says, “The Sphyngium and the Satyr stow away food in the pouches of their cheeks, after which they will take out piece by piece in their hands, and eat it.”

      Topsell has mixed up the Simia Satyrus with the classical satyr, having legs and horns like goats; but he evidently alludes to the former in this passage. “The Satyres are in the Islands Satiridæ, which are three in number, right over against India on the farther side of the Ganges; of which Euphemus Car rehearseth this history: that when he sailed unto Italy, by the rage of winde and evill weather, they were driven to a coast unnavigable, where were many desart Islandes, inhabited of wild men, and the marriners refused to land upon some Islands, having heretofore had triall of the inhumaine and uncivill behaviour of the inhabitants, so that they brought us to the Satyrian Islands, where we saw the inhabitants red, and had tayles joyned to their backs, not much lesse than horsses. These, being perceived by the marriners to run to the shippes, and lay hold on the women that were in them, the shipmen, for feare, took one of the Barbarian women, and set her on the land among them, whom in most odious and filthy manner, they abused, whereby they found them to be very bruit beasts.”

      He gives us his idea of the Simia Satyrus, which must have been an accomplished animal, for not only could it, apparently, play upon the pipe, but it had a handy pouch for the reception of the fruit (in lieu of coppers) which it doubtless would receive as guerdon for its performance.

      Satyrs

      He also mentions and delineates a curious Ape which closely resembles the classical Satyr: “Under the Equinoctiall, toward the East and South, there is a kind of Ape called Ægopithecus, an Ape like a Goate. For there are Apes like Beares, called Arctopitheci, and some like Lyons, called Leontopitheci, and some like Dogs, called Cynocephali, as is before expressed; and many other which have a mixt resemblance of other creatures in their members.

      “Amongst the rest there is a beast called PAN; who in his head, face, horns, legs, and from the loynes downward resembleth a Goat, but in his belly, breast, and armes, an Ape: such a one was sent by the King of Indians to Constantine, which, being shut up in a cave or close place, by reason of the wildnesse thereof, lived there but a season, and when it was dead and bowelled, they pouldred it with spices, and carried it to be seene at Constantinople: the which beast having beene seene of the ancient Græcians, were so amazed at the strangenesse thereof, that they received it for a God, as they did a Satyre, and other strange beasts.”

      I have said that Topsell has mixed the Ape and the Satyr, inextricably – but as his version has the charm of description and anecdote, I give it with little curtailment.

      “As the Cynocephali, or Baboun Apes have given occasion to some to imagine (though falsly) there were such men, so the Satyre, a most rare and seldom seene beast, hath occasioned other to thinke it was a Devil; and the Poets with their Apes, the Painters, Limners, and Carvers, to encrease that superstition, have therefore described him with hornes on his head, and feet like Goates, whereas Satires have neither of both. And it may be that Devils have at some time appeared to men in this likenes, as they have done in the likeness of the Onocentaure and wild Asse, and other shapes; it being also probable that Devils take not any dænomination or shape from Satyres, but rather the Apes themselves, from Devils whom they resemble, for there are many things common to the Satyre Apes, and devilish Satyres, as their human shape, their abode in solitary places, their rough hayre, and lust to women, wherewith all other Apes are naturally infected; but especially Satyres…

      “Peradventure the name of Satyre is more fitly derived from the Hebrew, Sair, Esa. 34, whereof the plural is Seirim, Esa. 13, which is interpreted monsters of the Desart, or rough hairy Fawnes; and when Iisim is put to Seir, it signifieth Goats.

      “The Chaldæans, for Seirim, render Schedin; that is, evill devills; and the Arabians, lesejathin, that is Satanas: the Persyans, Devan, the Illyrians, Devadai, and Dewas: the Germans, Teufel. They which passed through the world, and exercised dauncing and other sports for Dionisius, were called Satyres, and sometimes Tytiri, because of their wanton songes; sometimes Sileni (although the difference is, that the smaller and younger beasts are called Satiri, the elder, and greater, Sileni;) Also Bacchæ and Nymphæ, wherefore Bacchus is pictured riding in a chariot of vine branches, Silenus ridinge beside him on an Asse, and the Bacchæ or Satyres shaking togetheer their staulkie Javelines and Paulmers.26 By reason of their leaping they are called Scirti, and the anticke or satyrical dauncing, Sicinnis, and they also sometimes Sicinnistæ; sometimes Ægipanæ; wherefore Pliny reporteth, that among the westerne Ethiopians, there are certain little hilles full of the Satirique Ægipanæ, and that, in the night-time they use great fires, piping and dansing, with a wonderful noise of Tymbrels and Cymbals; and so also in Atlas amongest the Moores, whereof there was no footing, remnant, or appearance, to be found in the daytime.

      “… There are also Satires in the Eastern mountaines of India, in the country of the Cartaduli, and in the province of the Comari and Corudæ, but the Cebi spoken of before, bred in Ethiopia, are not Satyres (though faced like them:) nor the Prasyan Apes, which resemble Satyres in short beards. There are many kindes of these Satyres better distinguished by names than any properties naturall known unto us. Such are the Ægipanæ, before declared, Nymphes of the Poets, Fawnes, Pan and Sileni, which, in time of the Gentiles were worshipped for Gods; and it was one part of their religion to set up the picture of a Satyre at their dores and gates, for a remedy against the bewitching of envious persons.

      “… Satyres have no humaine conditions in them, nor any other resemblance of men besides their outward shape; though Solinus speakes of them like СКАЧАТЬ