Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/390

362 (Inf. xxxi. 118) the passage where he is speaking of Antæus gathering a thousand Lions as sport; and there he is merely quoting Lucan.

Of other foreign beasts, he makes allusion to the Elephant and Whale, both in speaking of the giants that rise around the ninth circle in the "Inferno" (Inf. xxxi. 52), where he makes the quaint remark that Nature did well to give up forming such creatures as the giants; and if she does not repent of Elephants and Whales, it is because they have not the intelligence to do harm; wherein Dante shows that he does not appreciate the intelligence of the Elephant, and perhaps, Mr. Bullen would add, of the "Cachalot."

Of other foreigners, he mentions the Bear, but only in reference to Elisha; the Ape and the Pelican, both in a conventional way.

Perhaps under this heading we should include his allusion to the Bivero or Bevero (Inf. xvii. 22).

Dante and Virgil have come to the margin of the eighth circle, whence they are to descend on the back of Geryon to the ninth. The monster, with a human head, paws, and a serpent's body, came up, and thrust on shore its head and bust; "but on to the border did not drag its back." The poet compared its position to that of a Beaver, "who among the guzzling Germans plants himself to wage his war" (upon the fish). Obviously Dante did not know the animal intimately, and, like many an Englishman of the present day, who fails to distinguish between the Sewer-Rat and the Beaver's humble representative the Water-Rat, accepted the common view which confused the fish-eating Otter with the rodent Castor. This is clearly brought out in Boccaccio's note:—"Bevero, the male Otter: this animal is very fond of fish; therefore it takes its stand on the banks of the Danube, puts its tail, which is very thick, into the water, and, because there is much fat on it, an unctuous matter exudes from it, by which the water is covered, as it were, with oil. To this the fish come, and the Beaver turns round and takes his pick of them"—a neatly concocted theory, from the way in which they have seen the Beaver sitting, and the shining greasy look of its tail. Had he seen a Norwegian landing fish with an oar, he doubtless would have let the Biber bring the fish to land in more