Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/389



is one peculiarity of Dante that has struck all readers of the 'Divina Commedia,' and that is his desire throughout to be exact in his descriptions. It may not be uninteresting, therefore, to consider what he has to say on the subject of natural history. He uses animals allegorically as part of the dramatis personæ of the 'Commedia,' and he often refers to them in simile. In so doing, we find that he may be merely taking some generally recognized characteristic of a beast, or describing it accurately from personal knowledge, and the value of his remarks will vary according as he is speaking from his own experience, or from what he has accepted from others.

The best division under which to consider them will be foreign animals, and those which he has met with in Italy. Of the first class—foreign animals, as one might expect—his descriptions are for the most part general. For instance, in the first canto of the "Inferno," the Lion—the emblem of pride—has nothing very special about it as it advances "with head uplifted, and with ravenous hunger." He may have seen one in some ducal Lion-pit, but the description of it might as well be a reminiscence of some heraldic imaging of the beast, to which all the other references are to be attributed, with the exception of Zool. 4th ser. vol, F., October, 1901.