34 
deep in the ground, to sleep, she gets out and comes away if he be 
cross or irritated. 
She, the moon, has great love for her children, the stars, and is, 
happy to travel among them in the above; and they, her children, 
feel safe and sing and dance as she passes along. But the mother, 
she cannot help that some of her children must be swallowed by 
the father every month. It is ordered that way by Pah-ah (Great 
Spirit), who lives above the place of all. 
Every month that father, the sun, does swallow up some of the 
stars, his children, and then that mother, the moon, feels sorrow. 
She must mourn. So she must put the black on her face for to 
mourn the dead. You see the Piute women put black on their 
* faces when a child is gone. But the dark will wear away from the 
face of that mother, the moon—a little and a little every day—and 
after a time again we see all bright the face of her. But soon 
more of her children are gone, and again she must put on her face 
the pitch and the black. 
We will now pass by an easy transition to another more 
dangerous monster, viz: ‘‘The Dragon.’ Its name is lost in 
considerable obscurity, but we know it to be of the lizard family, 
with a touch of the serpent about the tail. It was certainly a 
fearsome beast, inasmuch as in its internal economy, it possessed 
the power of vomiting forth fire and smoke and was worthy of the 
noblest efforts of the gods and heroes of heathen mythology. Thus 
a dragon watched the garden of the Hesperides, and its destruction 
formed one of the seven labours of Hercules. Its existence does 
not seem even to have been called in question by the older 
naturalists (says the Ency. Britt.) figures of the dragon, appearing 
in the works of Gesner, and even specimens of the monster 
(evidently formed of portions of various animals), have been ex- 
hibited. The only creature ever known to have existed at all, 
comparable to this imaginary monster, are the Pterodactyls re- 
mains of which have been found in the Liassic and Oolitic for- 
mation. These were huge reptiles, provided with true wings, 
somewhat resembling those of bats. It will be remembered that 
the dragon plays a great part in the Heraldic History of Eng- 
land, and occupies a prominent place on the largest of oar 
silver coins, where he is doing his best to look pleasant under the 
horse’s hoofs of the mighty St. George the patron saint of ‘‘ Merrie 
England.” 
St. George, I believe, still forms a Jegree of honour among the 
knights of to-day, and there is a cross of St. George with dragon 
and all presented tothose who may by their merits be deemed 
worthy of its reception. St. Michael also slays a dragon, as we 
read in Revelations, and in the great East Window of St. Michael’s 
Church there is a very artistic representation of the encounter. 
