CURIOUS CREATURES. 159 



with hunger ; such being the punishment inflicted upon 

 him by his own weapons, every now and then he would 

 look up, and supplicate him, as it were, with mute en- 

 treaties. Elpis, not wishing to risk trusting himself to 

 so formidable a beast, remained stationary for some time, 

 more at last from astonishment than from fear. At 

 length, however, he descended from the tree, and ex- 

 tracted the bone, the lion, in the meanwhile, extending 

 his head, and aiding in the operation as far as it was 

 necessary for him to do. The story goes on to say, that 

 as long as the vessel remained off that coast, the lion 

 shewed his sense of gratitude by bringing whatever he 

 had chanced to procure in the chase." 



The same author mentions two curious animals, the 

 Leucrocotta, and the Eale, which are noticeable among 

 other wonders : "Ethiopia produces the lynx in abund- 

 ance, and the sphinx, which has brown hair and two 

 mammae on the breast, as well as many monstrous kinds 

 of a similar nature ; horses with wings, and armed with 

 horns, which are called pegasi : the Crocotta, an animal 

 which looks as though it had been produced by the union 

 of the wolf and the dog, for it can break anything with 

 its teeth, and instantly, on swallowing it, it digests it with 

 the stomach ; monkeys, too, with black heads, the hair of 

 the ass, and a voice quite unlike that of any other animal." 



THE LEUCROCOTTA THE EALE CATTLE FEEDING 

 BACKWARDS. 



" There are oxen, too, like that of India, some with 

 one horn, and others with three ; the leucrocotta, a wild 

 beast of extraordinary swiftness, the size of the wild 

 ass, with the legs of a Stag, the neck, tail, and breast of 



