200 PLEAS A N7 WA YS IN SCIENCE. 



animal with some peculiarity abnormally developed, is with- 

 in the capacity of persons very little acquainted with zoology, 

 nay, is perhaps far easier to such persons than it would be 

 to an Owen, a Huxley, or a Darwin. In nearly every case, 

 however, the purely imaginary being is to be recognized by 

 the utter impossibility of its actual existence. If it be a 

 winged man, arms and wings are both provided, but the 

 pectoral muscles are left unchanged. A winged horse, in 

 like manner, is provided with wings, without any means of 

 working them. A centaur, as in the noble sculptures of 

 Phidias, has the upper part of the trunk of a man superadded, 

 not to the hind quarters of a horse or other quadruped, but 

 to the entire trunk of such an animal, so that the abdomen 

 of the human figure lies between the upper half of the human 

 trunk and the corresponding part of the horse's trunk, an 

 arrangement anatomically preposterous. Without saying 

 that every fabulous animal which was anatomically and 

 zoologically possible, had a real antitype, exaggerated though 

 the fabulous form may have been, we must yet admit that 

 errors so gross marked the conception of all the really 

 imaginary animals of antiquity, that any fabulous animal 

 found to accord fairly well with zoological possibilities may 

 be regarded, with extreme probability, as simply the exag- 

 gerated presentation of some really existent animal. The 

 inventors of centaars, winged and man-faced bulls, many- 

 headed dogs, harpies, and so forth, were utterly unable to 

 invent a possible new animal, save by the merest chance, 

 the probability of which was so small that it may fairly be 

 disregarded. 



This view of the so-called fabulous animals of antiquity 

 has been confirmed by the results of modern zoological 

 research. The merman, zoologically possible (not in all 

 details, of course, but generally), has found its antitype in 

 the dugong and the manatee; the roc in the condor, or 

 perhaps in those extinct species whose bones attest their 

 monstrous proportions ; the unicorn in the rhinoceros ; even 

 the dragon in the pterodactyl . of the green-sand ; while the 



