88 CURIOUS CREATURES. 



the boar, while the rest of the body is like that of the 

 horse : it makes a deep lowing noise, and has a single 

 black horn, which projects from the middle of its fore- 

 head, two cubits in length. This animal, it is said, 

 cannot be taken alive." 



Until James VI. of Scotland ascended the English 

 throne as James I., the Unicorn, as it is now heraldically 

 portrayed (which was a supporter to the arms of James 

 IV.) was almost unknown vide Tempest, iii. 3. 20 : 



" Alonzo, Give us kind keepers, heavens : what were these ? 

 Sebastian. A living drollery. Now I will believe that there 

 are unicorns." 



Spenser, who died before the accession of James I., 

 and therefore did not write about the supporters of the 

 Royal Arms, alludes (in his Faerie Queene) to the antago- 

 nism between the Lion and the Unicorne. 



" Like as the lyon, whose imperial poure 

 A proud rebellious unicorn defyes, 

 T'avoide the rash assault, and wrathful stoure 

 Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applyes, 

 And when him rouning in full course he spyes, 

 He slips aside : the whiles that furious beast, 

 His precious home, sought of his enimyes, 

 Strikes in the stroke, ne thence can be released, 

 But to the victor yields a bounteous feast." 



Pliny makes no mention of the Unicorn as we have 

 it heraldically represented, but speaks of the Indian 

 Ass, which, he says, is only a one-horned animal. 

 Other old naturalists, with the exception of ./Elian, do 

 not mention it as our Unicorn and his description of 

 it hardly coincides. He says that the Brahmins tell 

 of the wonderful beasts in the inaccessible regions of 

 the interior of India, among them being the Unicorn, 

 " which they call Cartazonon, and say that it reaches 



