Note 1720 — BOOK VIII. THE NATURE OF THE TERRESTRIAL ANIMALS.

This description of the mantichora appears to be taken from the Indica of Ctesias; it has been also adopted by Aristotle and Ælian, but they have qualified their accounts by some expressions of doubt, which are omitted by Pliny. It has been conjectured, that Ctesias took his description from the hieroglyphic figures in his time, probably common in the East, and still found in the ruins of the Assyrian and Persian cities, Nineveh and Persepolis, for instance.—B.