THE BASIS OF ANIMAL MYTH 301 



the elephant, though this may possibly be based on 

 stories of elephants being attacked by crocodiles when 

 drinking, and that between the polypus and the 

 lobster. The moral carried by the assumption that 

 moles only open their eyes when about to die was 

 also too good to encourage inquiry into facts, though 

 the belief is not more inaccurate than the common 

 notion of countrymen to-day, that moles' ears are 

 under their arm-pits. The effects of the monkish 

 treatment of natural history reached far beyond the 

 period in which its uses were consciously applied. It 

 was carried on, like a spent shot, ^and fell into the 

 commonplace of later commentary. As late as 1761, 

 we find the following notes published in Cruden's 

 Concordance^ under the heads of ' Dragon ' and ' Serpent ' 

 'As to the dragons which are talked of, and are 

 often mentioned in books, they are for the most 

 part only old serpents grown with age to a prodigious 

 size. Some are described with wings, feet, claws, 

 crest, and heads of different figures. There is no 



question but there are winged serpents 



Real dragons, by Solimus' account of them, have a 

 small mouth and cannot bite ; or, if they do, their 

 biting is not venomous/ ' It is further said of the 

 serpent's subtilty, that it stops up its ears that it 

 may not hear the voice of the charmer. It is said 

 that it applies one of its ears to the ground, and 



