no Chinese Clay Figures 



tail of a boar, while the rest of the body is like that of the horse; it 

 emits a deep roar, and has on the middle of its forehead a single black 

 horn two cubits in length. This beast, it is asserted, cannot be captured 

 alive." 1 In the Cyranides, a curious Greek work written between 227 

 and 400 a.d., 2 it is said, "The rhinoceros is a quadruped resembling the 

 stag, having a very large horn on its nose. It can be captured only by 

 means of the perfume and the beauty of well dressed women; it is indeed 

 much inclined toward love." 3 The importance of this passage, first 

 of all, rests on the fact that the single-horned cervine animal is here 

 clearly identified with the rhinoceros, an identification not yet made by 

 Pliny, who speaks of rhinoceros and monoceros as two distinct species; 

 and we remember that Cosmas Indicopleustes makes the same distinc- 

 tion in regard to India. In his introduction, F. de Mely 4 observes 

 that the Cyranides is the first work to reveal to us the starting-point of 

 the legend of the chase of the unicorn which is nothing but the rhino- 

 ceros. This, however, is very inexact. The first Occidental source 

 relating this legend is the Physiologus which is older than the Cyranides. 

 The Physiologus 5 tells of the monoceros that it is a small animal re- 

 sembling a buck, but very cunning; the hunter cannot approach it, as 

 it possesses great strength; the horn grows in the centre of its head; it 

 can be captured only by a pure virgin who suckles it; then she seizes it, 

 and carries it into the palace of the king ; or according to another version, 

 the unicorn falls asleep while in the lap of the virgin, whereupon the 

 hunters gradually approach and fetter it. The monoceros is located by 

 Pliny in India; and the western legend of the unicorn ensnared by 

 a virgin was first traced by S. Beal 6 to the ancient Indian legend of 

 Ekacrihga, the hermit Single Horn. H. Luders, 7 who has traced with 

 great ingenuity the development of the legend in the sources of Indian 



1 Orsaei Indi . . . venantur asperrimam autem feram monocerotem, reliquo 

 corpore equo similem, capite cervo, pedibus elephanto, cauda apro, mugitu gravi, uno 

 cornu nigro media fronte cubitorum duum eminente. hanc feram vivam negant capi. 

 (Ed. of C. Mayhoff, Vol. II, p. 104.) 



2 F. de Mely, Les lapidaires grecs, p. lxxi; de Mely is the first editor and 

 translator of this work. 



3 L. c, p. 90. 



4 L. c, p. LXV. 



5 F. Lauchert, Geschichte des Physiologus, pp. 22, 254 (Strassburg, 1889); F. 

 Hommel, Die aethiopische tJbersetzung des Physiologus, p. 68 (Leipzig, 1877); E. 

 Peters, Der griechische Physiologus und seine orientalischen Ubersetzungen, p. 34 

 (Berlin, 1898); K. Ahrens, Das "Buch der Naturgegenstande," p. 43 (Kiel, 1892). 



6 The Romantic Legend of Cskyamuni Buddha, p. 125; see also his Buddhist 

 Records of the Western World, Vol. I, p. 113. 



7 Die Sage von Rsyasringa (Nachrichten d. k. Ges. d. Wiss. zu Gottingen, 1897, 

 pp. 1-49), p. 29; an additional study from his pen on the same subject ibid., 1901, 

 pp. 1-29. 



