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have never seen, but have to take the word of others for it. The 
griffin, as you all know, plays a prominent part in the heraldry of 
the City of London, and also by some occult process of reasoning, 
does he visit the Post Office, and if you have not already observed 
him, the next time you pass up the Sandgate Road, if you take a 
lock at the top of the General Post Office you will find him perched 
up aloft, guarding the treasures in the safes below. We now will, 
if you please, just glance at another mythical monster, the exis- 
tence of which was firmly believed in throughout ancient and 
medieval times. I mean the cockatrice also mentioned in scripture 
as havinga ‘‘den.’’ Descriptions and figures of it appear in the 
natural history works of such writers as Pliny, published so late 
as the beginning of the 17th century. Produced from a cock’s 
egg and hatched by a serpent, it was believed to possess the most 
deadly powers. Plants withered at its touch, and men and 
animals died poisoned by its look. It stood in awe however, of 
the crowings ot the cock, the sound of whose crowing killed it ; 
consequently, travellers were wont to take this bird with them 
when travelling through districts supposed to be infested by these 
monsters. What would happen however, should the cock refuse 
to crow at the critical moment history is silent upon. The weasel 
alone among the mammals was unaffected by the glance of its evil 
eye, and attacked the monster, it is said, often with signal success, 
for when wounded by the monster’s teeth, it found a ready remedy 
in rue, the only plant the cockatrice could not wither. 
The next monster that we have to encounter is the ‘‘ Basilisk.” 
Very little appears to be known about the basilisk; which, however, 
should find a place in this paper, as it comes under the heading of 
our discourse this evening. ‘‘It was a horrid monster,’’ say the 
authorities on the subject, ‘‘ of the most demoniacal powers and of 
equally demoniacal appearance.” The term is now used to describe 
a genus of lizards, which are characterized by a membranous bag on 
the crown of the head which they can distend or contract at will; 
they also possess a fin-like ridge along the back part of the tail. 
I shall bring this paper to a conclusion by giving a little infor- 
mation about our old heraldic friend the ‘‘ Unicorn,’ about which 
animal there might, as you may well imagine, whole volumes be 
written : 
The myth appears to have originated with the rhinoceros, though 
how any person can reconcile the two ideas, is rather difficult to 
imagine. It should have the body of a horse, with a long 
spirally twisted horn projecting from the forehead, like that of the 
narwhal. The belief in the existence of the animal is very 
ancient, dating back to Aristotle; the Bible also mentions the 
unicorn, although probably it is a mistranslation for antelope. 
However, be that as it may, whether antelope or rhinoceros, it 
