14 ANTS, AMPHISB^NAS, BASILISKS 



There is no time to tell of all the strange monsters 

 that men used to invent just to frighten themselves with ! 

 There was a creature called the Odenthos, which had 

 three horns instead of one, and felt a special hatred of 

 elephants. There wh,s the little Amphisbsena, which was 

 something between • , lizard and a snake, and had a head 

 at each end of its body, so that it never needed to turn 

 round. This must have made it very creepy to meet, but 

 besides being horrid to look at it was very dangerous, as 

 both of its heads were equally poisonous. Then there were 

 yellow mice as large as ravens, and another kind as big 

 as dogs, that must have looked rather like kangaroos, and a 

 great many others, of which pictures may be found in 

 old books. But none, not even the griffin or the unicorn, 

 was as fierce as the small black basilisk, which was only 

 a foot long. It got its name from a white mark on its 

 forehead the shape of a crown, so they called it ' the 

 kin^,' from the Greek word ' basileus.' It seems odd that 

 such a tiny little animal could have caused such dread in 

 men as well as beasts, but it really was a terrible little 

 creature. It was enough for it to hiss for every living 

 thing that heard it to scamper away to its den. If it spat, 

 its venom was so deadly that rocks were rent by it, any 

 bird that flew over it fell down dead into its jaws, and by 

 merely looking at a man it killed the life within him. If 

 he happened to come across a basilisk for the first time, 

 and tried to cut off its head instead of running away, he 

 fared no better, for the poison from its mouth would fly 

 along the blade and cause his instant death. 



We may wonder how, after a few years, there was 

 anything but basilisks left on the earth, and perhaps there 

 would not have been, but for the presence of weasels and 

 of crystals. Weasels and basilisks had a natural hatred of 

 each other, and rushed at each other's throats at every 

 opportunity. The battle always ended in the same way, 

 by the death of both combatants, for though ' the weasel 

 overcomes the basilisk with its strong smell, yet it dies 



