This beautiful animal, which has lately so much excited the curiosity, and exercised the pens rather than the judgment of some naturalists, was brought to me at Algiers by Mahomet Rais, my drugoman or janizary, while consul-general to his Majesty in that regency. Mahomet Rais bought it for two sequins from an acquaintance, a Turkish oldash, or foot-soldier, just then returned from Biscara, a southern district of Mauritania CÆsariensis, now called the Province of Constantina. The soldier said they were not uncommon in Biscara, but more frequently met with in the neighbouring date territories of Beni Mezzab and Werglah, the ancient habitations of the Melano-GÆtuli; in the last mentioned of which places they hunted them for their skins, which they sent by the caravan to London Publish’d Dec.r 1.st 1789. by G. Robinson & Co. Doctor Sparman, with his natural dullness, and a disingenuousness which seems partly natural, partly acquired, Whether this fact is so or not, I do not pretend to give my opinion: if it is, I cannot but think Mr Brander’s conduct in both cases was extremely proper. The creature itself passed, by very fair means, from my possession into Mr Brander’s, who cannot doubt that I would have given it to him in preference to Mr Cleveland, if I had known he thought it of the least consequence; he was then, as having had the animal by just means in his possession, as much entitled to describe him as I was; or as the Turk, the prior possessor, who gave him to me, had he been capable, and so inclined. On the other hand, Mr Brander likewise judged very properly in refusing to publish the drawing at the request of Mr Nicander. The drawing was not justly acquired, as it was obtained by a breach of faith, and seduction of a servant, which might have cost him his bread. It was conducted with a privacy seldom thought necessary to fair dealing, nor was it ever known to me, till the young man began to be dangerously sick at Tunis, when he declared it voluntarily to me, with a contrition, that might have atoned for a much greater breach of duty. Dr Sparman attempts to conceal these circumstances. He says Mr Brander told him, that I saw this animal at Algiers, and that I employed the same painter that he did to make The Count of Buffon55, content with the merit of his own works, without seeking praise from scraps of information picked up at random from the reports of others, declares candidly, that he believes this animal to be as yet anonyme, that is, not to have a name, and in this, as in other respects, to be perfectly unknown. If those that have written concerning it had stopt here likewise, perhaps the loss the public would have suffered by wanting their observations would not have been accounted a great detriment to natural history. Mr Pennant56, from Mr Brander’s calling it a fox, has taken occasion to declare that his genus is a dog. Mr Sparman, that he may contribute his mite, attacks the description which I gave of this animal in a conversation with I do really believe there may be many small animals found at Camdebo, as well as in all the other sands of Africa; but having seen the rest of this creature during the whole time of a chace, without remarking his ears, which are his great characteristic, is a proof that Dr Sparman is either mistaken in the beast itself, or else that he is an unfortunate and inaccurate observer. There is but one other animal that has ears more conspicuous or disproportioned than this we are now speaking of. I need not name him to a man of the professor’s learning. The Doctor goes on in a further description of this animal that he had never seen. He says his name is Zerda, which I suppose is the Swedish translation of the Arabic word Jerd, or Jerda. But here Dr Sparman has been again unlucky in his choice, for, besides many other differences, the Jerd, which is an animal well known both in Africa and Arabia, has no tail, but this perhaps is but another instance of the Doctor’s ill fortune; in The Arabs who conquered Egypt, and very soon after the rest of Africa, the tyranny and fanatical ignorance of the Khalifat of Omar being overpast, became all at once excellent observers. They addicted themselves with wonderful application to all sorts of science; they became very skilful physicians, astronomers, and mathematicians; they applied in a particular manner, and with great success, to natural history, and being much better acquainted with their country than we are, they were, in an especial manner, curious in the accounts of its productions. They paid great attention in particular to the animals whose figures and parts are described in the many books they have left us, as also their properties, manners, their uses in medicine and commerce, are let down as distinctly and plainly as words alone could do. Their religion forbade them the use of drawing; this is the source of the confusion that has happened, and this is the only advantage we have over them. I believe there are very few remarkable animals, either in Africa or Arabia, that are not still to be found described in some Arabian author, and it is doing the public little service, when, from vanity, we substitute crude imaginations of our own in place of the observations of men, who were natives of the country, in perpetual use of seeing, as living with the animals which they described. There cannot, I think, be a stronger instance of this, than in the subject now before us; notwithstanding what has been as confidently as ignorantly asserted, I will venture to affirm, that this animal, so far from being unknown, is particularly described in all The name of this quadruped all over Africa is El Fennec; such was the name of that I first saw at Algiers; such it is called in the many Arabian books that have described it. But this name, having no obvious signification in Arabic, its derivation has given rise to many ill-founded guesses, and laid it open to the conjectures of grammarians who were not naturalists. Gollius says, it is a weasel, and so say all the Arabians. He calls it mustela fÆnaria, the hay weasel, from foenum, hay, that being the materials of which he builds his nest. But this derivation cannot be admitted, for there is no such thing known as hay in the country where the Fennec resides. But supposing that the dry grass in all countries may be called hay, still foenum, a Latin word, would not be that which would express it in Africa. But when we consider that long before, and ever after Alexander’s conquest, down as low as the tenth century, the language Gabriel Sionita60 says, the Fennec is a white weasel that lives in Sylvis Nigrorum, that is, in the woods of the Melano-GÆtuli, where indeed no other tree grows but the palm-tree, and this just lands us in the place from which the Fennec was brought to me at Algiers, in Biscara, Beni-Mezzab, and Werglah. It will be observed, that he does not say it is an animal of Nigritia; for that country being within the tropical rains, many other trees grow besides the palm, and there the date does not ripen; and by its very thin hair, and fine skin, this creature is known at first sight to belong to a dry, warm climate. But to leave no sort of doubt, he calls him GÆtulicus, which shews precisely what country he means. There, in the high palm-trees, of which this country is full, he writes, the Fennec builds its nest, and brings up its young. Giggeius tells us, that their skins are made use of for fine pelisses; Ibn Beitar, that quantities of this fur is brought from the interior parts of Africa, and Damir and Razi say, that their skins are used for summer pelisses61. After leaving Algiers I met with another Fennec at Tunis; All these animals found at separate times did exactly resemble the first one seen at Algiers. They were all known by the name of Fennec, and no other, and said to inhabit the date villages, where they built their nests upon trees perfectly conformable to what the Arabian authors, whether naturalists or historians, had said of them. Though his favourite food seemed to be dates or any sweet fruit, yet I observed he was very fond of eggs: pigeons eggs, and small birds eggs, were first brought him, which he devoured with great avidity; but he did not seem to know how to manage the egg of a hen, but when broke for him, he ate it with the same voracity as the others. When he was hungry, he would eat bread, especially with honey From the snout to the anus he was about ten inches long, his tail five inches and a quarter, near an inch on the tip of it was black. From the point of his fore-shoulder to the point of his fore-toe, was two inches and 7/8ths. He was two inches and a half from his occiput to the point of his nose, the length of his ears three inches and 3/8ths. These were doubled, or had a plait on the bottom on the outside; the border of his ears in the inside were thick-covered with soft white hair, but the middle part was bare, and of a pink or rose colour. They were about an inch and a half broad, and the cavities within very large. It was very difficult to measure these, for he was very impatient at having his ears touched, and always kept them erect, unless when terrified by a cat. The pupil of his eye was large London Publish’d Dec.r 1.{st} 1789. by G. Robinson & Co. |