[Footnote B: _Joh. Laurent. Anania prope finem tractatus primi suae
Geograph._]

[Footnote C: _Joh. Cassanius libello de Gygantibus_, p. 73.]

[Footnote D: _Jo. Talentonius Variar. & recondit. Rerum Thesaurus_, lib. 3.
cap. 21. p.m. 515.]

[Footnote E: _Job Ludolphi Comment. in Historiam AEthiopic._ p.m. 71.]

I had almost forgotten _Olaus Magnus_, whom _Bartholine_ mentions in the
close of this Chapter, but lays no great stress upon his Authority,
because he tells us, he is fabulous in a great many other Relations, and
he writes but by hear-say, that the _Greenlanders_ fight the _Cranes_;
_Tandem_ (saith _Bartholine_) _neque ideo Pygmaei sunt, si forte sagittis &
hastis, sicut alij homines, Grues conficiunt & occidunt._ This I think is
great Partiality: For _Ctesias_, an Author whom upon all turns
_Bartholine_ makes use of as an Evidence, is very positive, that the
_Pygmies_ were excellent _Archers_: so that he himself owns, that their
being such, illustrates very much that _Text_ in _Ezekiel_, on which he
spends good part of the next _Chapter_, whose Title is, _Pygmaeorum Gens ex
Ezekiele, atque rationibus probabilibus adstruitur_; which we will
consider by and by. And tho' _Olaus Magnus_ may write some things by
hear-say, yet he cannot be so fabulous as _Ctesias_, who (as _Lucian_
tells us) writes what he neither saw himself, or heard from any Body else.
Not that I think _Olaus Magnus_ his _Greenlanders_ were real _Pygmies_, no
more than _Ctesias_ his _Pygmies_ were real _Men_; tho' he vouches very
notably for them. And if all that have copied this Fable from _Ctesias_,
must be look'd upon as the same Evidence with himself; the number of the
_Testimonies_ produced need not much concern us, since they must all stand
or fall with him.

The _probable Reasons_ that _Bartholine_ gives in the _fifth Chapter_, are
taken from other _Animals_, as Sheep, Oxen, Horses, Dogs, the _Indian
Formica_ and Plants: For observing in the same _Species_ some excessive
large, and others extreamly little, he infers, _Quae certe cum in
Animalibus & Vegetabilibus fiant; cur in Humana specie non sit probabile,
haud video: imprimis cum detur magnitudinis excessus Gigantaeus; cur non
etiam dabitur Defectus? Quia ergo dantur Gigantes, dabuntur & Pygmaei. Quam
consequentiam ut firmam, admittit Cardanus,[A] licet de Pygmaeis hoc tantum
concedat, qui pro miraculo, non pro Gente._ Now Cardan, tho' he allows
this Consequence, yet in the same pla