[Kalimac]

No! No! Not even a chance! I'm sorry, but they're not even close. Not to be rude, but that's like positing that because Gollum and Saruman both lusted after the Ring, that Gollum might somehow be one of Istari (Maybe one of the Blue Wizards, to whom the years would obviously have been less than kind). As Bruce pointed out so thoroughly a post or two ago, hobbits are a subcategory (roughly put) of Men - this is stated numerous times by Tolkien and in fact the hobbits (and men) take it for granted themselves - "Put us after Men" says Merry, when telling Treebeard where to put hobbits in the Old Lists, and both of them see it as the right thing to do. (Bree, where the hobbits and "Big People" live together amicably, is an example of how fundamentally similar they are; try to imagine Ents and Men sharing a village....quite). They both eat "man-food" they share language, tastes, culture, EVERYTHING except average height. The hobbits are more stay-at-home and peaceful, but that's as much a product of their comfortable land as it is of them.

Treebeard (who of all creatures you'd think would realize it if the hobbits had anything entish about them) does say that the Shire sounds like the sort of land that the Entwives might like, but all he means is that the Wives and the hobbits both share a taste for comfortable lands and gardening; hardly proof of a common genetic ancestry. Besides, how would the Entwives have given birth to hobbits? Apart from the dubious genetics of the business, how would they *do* it? Budding? Dropping seeds in the ground which would sprout up and produce a fully formed little man-like creature? That's something you'd find in "The Flower Fairies" not Tolkien.