I had almost forgotten Olaus Magnus, whom Bartholine mentions in the close of this Chapter, but lays no great stress upon his Authority, because he tells us, he is fabulous in a great many other Relations, and he writes but by hear-say, that the Greenlanders fight the Cranes; Tandem (saith Bartholine) neque ideo Pygmaei sunt, si forte sagittis & hastis, sicut alij homines, Grues conficiunt & occidunt. This I think is great Partiality:  For Ctesias, an Author whom upon all turns Bartholine makes use of as an Evidence, is very positive, that the Pygmies were excellent Archers:  so that he himself owns, that their being such, illustrates very much that Text in Ezekiel, on which he spends good part of the next Chapter, whose Title is, Pygmaeorum Gens ex Ezekiele, atque rationibus probabilibus adstruitur; which we will consider by and by.  And tho’ Olaus Magnus may write some things by hear-say, yet he cannot be so fabulous as Ctesias, who (as Lucian tells us) writes what he neither saw himself, or heard from any Body else.  Not that I think Olaus Magnus his Greenlanders were real Pygmies, no more than Ctesias his Pygmies were real Men; tho’ he vouches very notably for them.  And if all that have copied this Fable from Ctesias, must be look’d upon as the same Evidence with himself; the number of the Testimonies produced need not much concern us, since they must all stand or fall with him.

The probable Reasons that Bartholine gives in the fifth Chapter, are taken from other Animals, as Sheep, Oxen, Horses, Dogs, the Indian Formica and Plants:  For observing in the same Species some excessive large, and others extreamly little, he infers, Quae certe cum in Animalibus & Vegetabilibus fiant; cur in Humana specie non sit probabile, haud video:  imprimis cum detur magnitudinis excessus Gigantaeus; cur non etiam dabitur Defectus?  Quia ergo dantur Gigantes, dabuntur & Pygmaei.  Quam consequentiam ut firmam, admittit Cardanus,[A] licet de Pygmaeis hoc tantum concedat, qui pro miraculo, non pro Gente. Now Cardan, tho’ he allows this Consequence, yet in the same place he gives several Reasons why the Pygmies could not be Men, and looks upon the whole Story as fabulous. Bartholine concludes this Chapter thus:  Ulterius ut Probabilitatem fulciamus, addendum Sceleton Pygmaei, quod Dresdae vidimus inter alia plurima, servatum in Arce sereniss. Electoris Saxoniae, altitudine infra Cubitum, Ossium soliditate, proportioneque tum Capitis, tum aliorum; ut Embrionem, aut Artificiale quid Nemo rerum peritus suspicari possit.  Addita insuper est Inscriptio Veri Pygmaei.  I hereupon looked into Dr. Brown’s Travels into those Parts, who has given us a large Catalogue of the Curiosities, the Elector of Saxony had at Dresden, but did not find amongst them this Sceleton; which, by the largeness of the Head, I suspect to be the Sceleton of an Orang-Outang, or our wild Man.  But had he given us either a figure of it, or a more particular Description, it had been a far greater Satisfaction.