Now what seems most likely to me, is the account that Pliny out of Megasthenes, and Strabo from Onesicritus give us; and, provided I be not obliged to believe or justifie all that they say, I could rest satisfied in great part of their Relation:  For Pliny[B] tells us, Veris tempore universo agmine ad mare descendere, & Ova, Pullosque earum Alitum consumere:  That in the Spring-time the whole drove of the Pygmies go down to the Sea side, to devour the Cranes Eggs and their young Ones.  So likewise Onesicritus,[B] [Greek:  Pros de tous trispithamous polemon einai tais Geranois (hon kai Homaeron daeloun) kai tois Perdixin, ous chaenomegetheis einai; toutous d’ eklegein auton ta oa, kai phtheirein; ekei gar ootokein tas Geranous; dioper maedamou maed’ oa euriskesthai Geranon, maet’ oun neottia;] i.e. That there is a fight between the Pygmies and the Cranes (as Homer relates) and the Partridges which are as big as Geese; for these Pygmies gather up their Eggs, and destroy them; the Cranes laying their Eggs there; and neither their Eggs, nor their Nests, being to be found any where else.  ’Tis plain therefore from them, that the Quarrel is not out of any Antipathy the Pygmies have to the Cranes, but out of love to their own Bellies.  But the Cranes finding their Nests to be robb’d, and their young Ones prey’d on by these Invaders, no wonder that they should so sharply engage them; and the least they could do, was to fight to the utmost so mortal an Enemy.  Hence, no doubt, many a bloody Battle happens, with various success to the Combatants; sometimes with great slaughter of the long-necked Squadron; sometimes with great effusion of Pygmaean blood.  And this may well enough, in a Poet’s phancy, be magnified, and represented as a dreadful War; and no doubt of it, were one a Spectator of it, ’twould be diverting enough.

[Footnote A:  Plinij.  Hist.  Nat. lib. 7. cap. 2. p.m. 13.]

[Footnote B:  Strab.  Geograph. lib. 15. pag. 489.]

-----Si videas hoc
Gentibus in nostris, risu quatiere:  sed illic,
Quanquam eadem assidue spectantur Praelia, ridet
Nemo, ubi tota cohors pede non est altior uno.[A]

[Footnote A:  Juvenal.  Satyr. 13 vers. 170.]

This Account therefore of these Campaigns renewed every year on this Provocation between the Cranes and the Pygmies, contains nothing but what a cautious Man may believe; and Homer’s Simile in likening the great shouts of the Trojans to the Noise of the Cranes, and the Silence of the Greeks to that of the Pygmies, is very admirable and delightful.  For Aristotle[B] tells us, That the Cranes, to avoid the hardships of the Winter, take a Flight out of Scythia to the Lakes about the Nile, where the