78 CURIOUS CREATURES. 



Libia neare the Sea-shore, full of sand like to a sandy 

 Sea, and all the neighbor places thereunto are deserts. 

 If it fortune at any time, that through shipwrack, men 

 come there on shore, these beasts watch uppon them, 

 devouring them all, which either endevour to travell on 

 the land, or else to returne backe againe to Sea, adding 

 also, that when they see a man they stand stone still, 

 and stir not til he come unto them, looking down upon 

 their breasts or to the ground, whereupon some have 

 thought, that seeing them, at their first sight have such 

 a desire to come neare them, that they are drawne into 

 their compasse, by a certaine naturall magicall witchcraft. 

 . . . The hinderparts of the beast are like unto a Goate, 

 his fore legs like a Beares, his upper parts to a woman, 

 the body scaled all over like a Dragon, as some have 

 affirmed by the observation of their bodies, when Probns, 

 the Emperor, brought them forth unto publike spectacle ; 

 also it is reported of them, that the}' devoure their own 

 young ones, and therefore they derive their name Lamia, 

 of Lamiando ; and thus much for this beast." 



THE CENTAUR. 



This extraordinary combination of man and animal is 

 very ancient and the first I can find is Assyrian. Mr. 

 W. St. Chad Boscawen, in one of his British Museum 

 Lectures (afterwards published under the title of From 

 under the Dust of Ages}, speaking of the seasons and 

 the zodiacal signs, in his lecture on The Legend of 

 Gizdhubar, says: " Gizdhubar has a dream that the stars 

 of heaven are falling upon him, and, like Nebuchadnezzar, 

 he can find no one to explain the hidden meaning to 



