1880.] 44J [Phillips. 



Monsters of every conceivable age, shape, size, appearance and color ; 

 fish with the heads of owls ; whales with crocodile's scaly hacks and the 

 heads and tusks of wild boars ; pig-headed animals with fish's tails and 

 elephants' bodies ; fish with cats' faces and ruffles around their bodies ; 

 fish that look like turnips and carrots ; fish swallowing young pigs ; fish 

 with leopards' heads and claws ; fish with wolves' heads ; fish with oxen's 

 heads ; griffin-headed fish ; fish with heads of birds and bodies like dock 

 leaves ; fish attacking men ; gigantic lobsters and crawfish ; wonderful 

 fish that look like crows ; a sea serpent swallowing a vessel ; and many 

 other objects which the credulity and superstition of our ancestors accept- 

 ed in good faith. A whale is represented as attacking a vessel whose 

 mariners are vainly endeavoring in accordance with the established custom 

 to divert its attention from their ship by throwing overboard a number of 

 small barrels or tubs ; a usage from whence arose the saying of casting a 

 tub to the toliale, meaning to divert one by means of a lesser matter from a 

 greater one. In one corner of the plate occurs the barnacle tree, already 

 described, with its fruit. 



At page 905 is the portrait of a monster who was born at Cracow in 

 February, 1547, and lived three hours. It is a boy whose feet and hands 

 terminate in four duck-like webs instead of fingers and toes. There grows 

 out of each knee and out of each elbow a dog's head, being four in all, 

 while from each of his breasts protrudes the head of a ram. At the bottom 

 of the breast bone in his belly is an extra pair of eyes ; a forked tail waves 

 up to his head. He has a long and flexible elephant's proboscis in place 

 of an ordinary nose ; large and round, saucer-shaped eyes, and an extra 

 pair of ears growing out of the corners of his eyes, which, as well as the 

 ears in their usual position, are formed like those of a rabbit. 



At page 1025 occurs the history of the Tower of Babel, apropos of which 

 Minister gives the word bread in fourteen languages, and speaks of Noah 

 as being identical with Janus. 



The Phcenix is described on page 1034, and at page 1045 the Hyr- 

 canian Tiger ; the latter as follows : 



"It is a large animal of various colors, which is quite tame when its hun- 

 ger is appeased. It sleeps three days at a time and upon awakening it 

 washes itself and raises a cry and emits a peculiar scent that attracts to it 

 all sorts of wild animals, for with all such does it preserve friendly rela- 

 tions save with the dragon and with the asp." 



The Tartars are described at page 1060 as being anthropophagi, and one 

 of them is delineated as superintending the process of roasting a human 

 body impaled upon a spit over a fire, in the act of turning the viand care- 

 fully so as to cook it evenly on all sides. 



At page 1066 is a description of India and its customs, one of which is 

 represented by a woodcut of an elephant attached to a plough and serving 

 as a tiller of the soil. 



Dragons are seen on page 1069 with all their usual fabulous horrors of 

 scales and wings and jaws ; duels between these animals are pictured as of 



PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XVIII. 105. 3F. PRINTED MARCH 2, 1880. 



