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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.

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    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), GARAMANTES
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