Crocodiles, T^lrtles t and Lizards. 2 1 



new-born infants in the shells. Its appearance unexpectedly 

 was a very auspicious omen, as being traditionally opposed 

 to the diabolical and mischievous. In England, as a thing 

 of magic, it was part of the stock-in-trade of the alchemist, 

 astrologer, and quack: so, in "Romeo and Juliet" " In 

 his needy shop a tortoise hung." As affording a shield, it 

 has honourable associations referred to by several poets. 

 Thus Rogers' lines, " The warrior's lance Rings on the 

 tortoise with wild dissonance," reminds the reader of the 

 device by which they kept from old Chronos the intelligence 

 of the birth of Zeus, and of the challenge " on the ringing 

 tortoise " of the Knight of Thrace. That the elephant and 

 tortoise should be at perpetual feud, each considering 

 himself the lord of the lake, is one of the funniest myths 

 I know. 



" Both animals (sun and moon) frequent the banks of the 

 same lake, and have conceived a mortal dislike one for the 

 other, continuing in their brutal forms the quarrel which 

 existed between them when they were not only two men 

 but two brothers. As the elephant and the tortoise both 

 frequent the shores of the same lake, they mutually annoy 

 each other, renewing and maintaining in mythical zoology 

 the strife which subsists between the two mythical brothers 

 who fight each other for the kingdom of heaven, either in 

 the form of twilights, or of equinoxes, or of sun and moon." 

 Yet they meet after all in the " Rape of the Lock " in more 

 friendly rivalry : 



" The tortoise here and elephant unite, 

 Transformed to combs, the speckled and the white." 



In poetical metaphor, as in mythology, the tortoise repre- 

 sents the lazy and slow : 



" I would not be a tortoise in his screen 



Of stubborn shell, which waves and weather wear not. 

 Tis better, on the whole, to have felt and seen 

 That which humanity may bear, or bear not." Byron. 



