UNICORN.] NATURAL HISTORY. 323 



a little beast like to a kid. Also in Ind be one-horned oxen 

 with white specks and bones, and with thick hoofs as horses 

 have. Bartholomew (Bertbelet), bk. xviii. 90. 



TRADES that lay dead and rotten, and were in all men's 

 opinion utterly damned, started out of their trance, as 

 though they had drunk of Aqua Ccelestis, or Unicorn's horn, 

 and swore to fall to their old occupations. 



Dekker, The Wonderful Year 1603." 



SOME hunt the Unicorn for the treasure on his head, 

 and they are like covetous men, that care not whom they 

 kill for riches. Ibid., "Lanthorn and Candlelight," ch. iii. 



IN St. Mark's church they will show you two Unicorns' 

 horns, of which the red is the male, and the yellow the female. 



"A true Description of what is most \vorthy to be 

 seen in Italy," etc. (circa 1590). 



[Topsell ("Four-footed Beasts," pp. 551, 552) takes those 

 who do not believe in the Unicorn very seriously to task for 

 their unbelief, not to say atheism. He inclines to the belief 

 that the Unicorn is the wild ass of India, but is not sure, be- 

 cause "the feet of the wild asses are whole and not cloven 

 like the Unicorn's, and their colour white in their body, and 

 purple on their head ; and the horn differeth in colour from 

 the Unicorn's, for the middle of it is only black, the root of it 

 white, and the top of it purple ; and the Indians of that horn 

 do make pots, affirming that whosoever drinketh in one of 

 those pots shall never take disease that day, and, if they be 

 wounded, shall feel no pain, or safely pass through the fire 

 without burning, nor yet be poisoned in their drink, and there- 

 fore such cups are only in the possession of their kings, neither 

 is it lawful for any man except the king to hunt that beast. 

 Now in the kingdom of Basman, which is subject to the great 

 Cham, there are Unicorns somewhat lesser than Elephants, 

 having hair like oxen, heads like boars, feet like elephants, 

 one horn in the middle of their foreheads, and a sharp, thorny 

 tongue, wherewith they destroy both man and beast, and they 

 muddle in the dirt like swine. In a certain region of the new- 

 found world, under the equinoctial, there is a living creature, 

 with one horn (which is crooked and not great), having' the 

 head of a dragon, and a beard upon his chin, his neck long and 

 stretched out like a serpent's, the residue of his body like to a 

 hart's, saving that his feet, colour, and mouth, are like a lion's."] 



