This
is the more provoking, as, in general, Galvao is very circumstantial
about the discoveries of his countrymen.
Qu. 5. The article in Ree's _Cyclopaedia_ is a pretty specimen of the
manner in which such things are sometimes concocted, as the following
extracts will show:--
"Of _Bats_ they have as big as Hennes about Java and the
neighbor islands. Clusius bought one of the Hollanders, which
they brought from the Island of Swannes (Ilha do Cisne), newly
styled by them Maurice Island. It was about a foot from head
to taile, above a foot about; the wings one and twenty inches
long, nine broad; the claw, whereby it hung on the trees, was
two inches," &c. "Here also they found a Fowle, which they
called Walgh-vogel, of the bigness of a Swanne, and most
deformed shape." (_Purchas his Pilgrimage_, 1616, p. 642.)
And afterward, speaking of the island of Madura, he says,--
"In these partes are Battes as big as Hennes, which the people
roast and eat."
In the _Lettres edifiantes_ (edit.
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