A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients | Page 2

who was a physician of good standing in Cheltenham. The "Pygmie" formed a somewhat remarkable item of her dowry. Her husband presented it to the Cheltenham Museum, where it was fortunately carefully preserved until, quite recently, it was transferred to its present position.
At the conclusion of the purely scientific part of the work the author added four Philological Essays, as will have appeared from his title-page. The first of these is both the longest and the most interesting, and has alone been selected for republication in this volume.
This is not the place to deal with the scientific merit of the main body of Tyson's work, but it may at least be said that it was the first attempt which had been made to deal with the anatomy of any of the anthropoid apes, and that its execution shows very conspicuous ability on the part of its author.
Tyson, however, was not satisfied with the honour of being the author of an important morphological work; he desired to round off his subject by considering its bearing upon the, to him, wild and fabulous tales concerning pigmy races. The various allusions to these races met with in the pages of the older writers, and discussed in his, were to him what fairy tales are to us. Like modern folk-lorists, he wished to explain, even to euhemerise them, and bring them into line with the science of his day. Hence the "Philological Essay" with which this book is concerned. There are no pigmy races, he says; "the most diligent enquiries of late into all the parts of the inhabited world could never discover any such puny diminutive race of mankind." But there are tales about them, "fables and wonderful and merry relations, that are transmitted down to us concerning them," which surely require explanation. That explanation he found in his theory that all the accounts of pigmy tribes were based upon the mistakes of travellers who had taken apes for men. Nor was he without followers in his opinion; amongst whom here need only be mentioned Buffon, who in his Histoire des Oiseaux explains the Homeric tale much as Tyson had done. The discoveries, however, of this century have, as all know, re-established in their essential details the accounts of the older writers, and in doing so have demolished the theories of Tyson and Buffon. We now know, not merely that there are pigmy races in existence, but that the area which they occupy is an extensive one, and in the remote past has without doubt been more extensive still. Moreover, certain of these races have been, at least tentatively, identified with the pigmy tribes of Pliny, Herodotus, Aristotle, and other writers. It will be well, before considering this question, and before entering into any consideration of the legends and myths which may possibly be associated with dwarf races, to sketch briefly their distribution throughout the continents of the globe. It is necessary to keep clearly in view the upper limit which can justly be assigned to dwarfishness, and with this object it may be advisable to commence with a statement as to the average heights reached by various representative peoples. According to Topinard, the races of the world may be classified, in respect to their stature, in the following manner:--
Tall 5 ft. 8 in. and upwards. Above the average 5 ft. 6 in. to 5 ft. 8 in. Below the average 5 ft. 4 in. to 5 ft. 6 in. Short Below 5 ft. 4 in.
Thus amongst ordinary peoples there is no very striking difference of height, so far as the average is concerned. It would, however, be a great mistake to suppose that all races reaching a lower average height than five feet four inches are, in any accurate sense of the word, to be looked upon as pigmies. We have to descend to a considerably lower figure before that appellation can be correctly employed. The stature must fall considerably below five feet before we can speak of the race as one of dwarfs or pigmies. Anthropometrical authorities have not as yet agreed upon any upward limit for such a class, but for our present purposes it may be convenient to say that any race in which the average male stature does not exceed four feet nine inches--that is, the average height of a boy of about twelve years of age--may fairly be described as pigmy. It is most important to bear this matter of inches in mind in connection with points which will have to be considered in a later section.
Pigmy races still exist in considerable numbers in Asia and the adjacent islands, and as it was in that continent that, so far as our present knowledge goes, they had in former days their greatest extension, and, if De Quatrefages be