148 BOMBAY DUCKS 



" lytylle stature," being " three span long " ; but they 

 are " right fair and gentylle." They marry when they 

 are six months old and live " but six year, or seven at 

 the most." Next come the dwarfs. These are small 

 men, but bigger than the pigmies. They possess the 

 useful property of being able to live on the smell of 

 apples. 



Want of space prevents more than the mention of 

 mermen and mermaids, crane-headed men, headless 

 men, neckless men, noseless men, and men minus one 

 or all the other organs. There were, also, one-eyed 

 men, four-eyed men, tailed men. Then there was the 

 hippos, the counterpart of the centaur of classical 

 writers. The monstrmn triceps capite vulpis, draconis et 

 aqiiilcB deserves special notice, as showing the lengths 

 to which mediaeval imagination used to go. This was a 

 creature with a human body and legs covered with 

 scales, having three heads resembling those of a wolf, a 

 dragon, and an eagle. One of the arms was that of a 

 man, while the other was an eagle's wing. The finish- 

 ing touch to this monster was a horse's tail ! 



As specimens of the creatures which fill up the 

 mediaeval bestiaries I may mention unicorns, phoenixes, 

 cockatrices — the products of cocks' eggs — dragons, rocs 

 — birds that used to amuse themselves by swooping 

 down and carrying off elephants — basilisks, griffins, 

 camel-leopards, and dozens of other grotesque creatures. 



As has already been remarked, the ancients, even 

 when they wrote about the birds they could see every 

 day of their lives, made no attempt to study their 

 habits or manner of life ; they were content to relate all 



