252 STUDIES IN INSECT LIFE, ETC. 

 to say, a weasel. The effluvium of this animal 

 destroyed the cockatrice, but the weasel also 

 perished. 



On dragons one could write a volume. There 

 was the unwinged class, such as the dragon of 

 Wantley, and the " laidley worme " of Lambton, 

 and there was the winged dragon such as St. George 

 slays on our golden sovereigns,* "more furious 

 and wicked than the wormes," one curiously 

 reminiscent of the fossil plesiosaurs, the other 

 of the pterodactyls. Most of the references, 

 and there are some ten or twelve, in the plays 

 are to the winged variety. 



The griffin, which we must carefully distinguish 

 from the gryphon, was a gigantic animal with, 

 as Mandeville, who knew all about it, tells us, 

 " the body before as an Ele, and behind as a 

 Lyon." It was " greater than eight Lyons " 

 and could carry to its nest a horse with a man 

 on its back or a yoke of oxen. It lived in places 

 very inaccessible to men of medieval or Tudor 

 times: in Bactria, according to Mandeville; "in 

 the far northern mountains/' according to Olaus 

 Magnus ; while Marco Polo locates it in Madagascar. 

 Hotspur, who could not stand a pedant, says : 



* Written before the war-notes. 



