262 



OUT OF DOORS. 



pigmy, for his beak is long enough to spit the little 

 man through and through. Then come the monsters 

 of the composite order, i.e., which are made up of beast, 

 bird, and man. . There is a very fine Centaur ; there is 

 a man with a human head perched at the end of an 

 ostrich's neck ; and there is a man whose head is 

 adorned with a large pair of ibex horns — * quales in 

 soUtudine 8. Antonius Abbas vidiV Then there is a 

 nation of women who have beards flowing over their 

 breasts ; and there is a whole nation of Hermaphro- 

 dites, of which remarkable beings the artist gives an 

 authentic portrait. The portrait represents a human 

 being, man on the right side and woman on the 

 left, divided accurately by a perpendicular line down 

 the middle of the body, much like the well-known 

 portrait of the Chevalier D'Eon, or the older and 

 wider known print of 'Death and the Lady.' The 

 head has a most absurd appearance, being furnished 

 with short hair and half a long beard on the right 

 bide, while the left has a smooth face and long straight 

 hair. And after being gratified by the sight of these 

 wonderful beings, the reader is confidingly told that 

 there are yet many more monsters in the world — ' quoa 

 commemorare perlongum est.'' There is an evident 

 good faith in all these queer drawings, and the equally 

 queer descriptions ; and it is quite delightful to read a 

 book in which these absurdities are gravely treated as 

 true. 



On examination of the series of monsters, there ifi , 



