42 LEAVES EROM THE 



which service the ibis is held in high reverence by the 

 Egyptians.* 



The ' serpent selle' that flew near Mount Sinai, 

 figured by Belon, was probably one of this ghastly crew 

 of invaders. 



And here a word for Herodotus, who has been accused 

 of all sorts of Munchausenisms. It will be generally 

 found, that whatever he says he himself saw, has been 

 corroborated by modern eye-witnesses. In the case of 

 the phoenix, he writes — ' They say that he has the fol- 

 lowing contrivance, which, in my opinion, is not cre- 

 dible ;' and then he relates the story of the egg of 

 myrrh, and of the son's carrying the father's body into 

 Egypt. Again, he Jieard of winged serpents, but says 

 he saw the bones of serpents, which he doubtless did ; 

 and after describing the black ibis which fights with the 

 serpents, at the conclusion of the chapter he evidently 

 alludes to the report, when he says that the form of the 

 sei3)ent is like that of the water-snake, but that he has 

 wings without feathers, and as like as may be to the 

 wings of a bat. 



When we take a glance at the map, and see what an 

 enormous area of African territory is still an undisco- 

 vered country, even in this age of enterprise, can we 

 wonder that romance has been busy with the vast and 

 unknoAvn tracts? Many of the animals which are kno-WTi 

 to us are of extraordinary shape and habits ; and it was 

 but the other day that Professor Owen described a new 

 species of anthropoid apes, the Gorilla, more horrible in 

 appearance than any phantom that Fuseli ever ima- 

 gined. Look at the proportions of the giraffe, with its pre- 

 hensile tongue, and its mode of progression, by moving 

 tAvo legs on the same side together, so that both feet are 

 off the ground at the same time. But we must not mul- 

 tiply examples which will occur to most of our readers. 



* Euterpe, 74. 



