CHAP. 45.—THE COROCOTTA; THE MANTICHORA. [1]
By the union of the hyena with the Æthiopian lioness, the
corocotta is produced, which has the same faculty of imitating
the voices of men and cattle. Its gaze is always fixed and
immoveable; it has no gums in either of its jaws, and the
teeth are one continuous piece of bone; they are enclosed in a
sort of box as it were, that they may not be blunted by rubbing against each other. Juba informs us, that the mantichora
of Æthiopia can also imitate the human speech.
1. We have had some account given of the mantichora, in c. 30. The
mantichora and the corocotta are altogether imaginary.—B. Cuvier. in
Ajasson, vol. vi. p. 447; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 439, thinks that the stories
of the corocotta and the catoblepas, owe their origin to mutilated accounts
of the hyæna, and the animal known to us as the gnu.