169S.] FABULOUS ANIMALS. 279 



As for the Unicorn^ there is no such sort of Beast. The 

 okl and most curious Inhabitants of the Caye, are well 

 satisfy'd with it, and he that made Cesar's Commentaries was 

 a Lyar, as well as the rest. The Ehinoceros is the true four- 

 footed Unicom, for there are Fish, Birds, and some Insects, 

 that have likewise but one Horn. I could heartily wish to 

 have seen one of these Ehinoceros's, by reason of the many 

 Fables that are told of that Beast, as well as of the Crocodiles, 

 and a hundred other Animals. My Friends that liad seen of 

 them, laugh'd at all the Figures the Painters gave of them, 

 and which are here'-^ subjoin'd for Curiosities sake. Certainly 

 nothing can be more Comical, than so many pretended 

 Embossings; all which however is fabulous. The true 

 Ehinoceros has a Hide like to that of an Elephant, and the 

 older he is, the more wrinkled he will be : It is the same 

 with us in that Eespect. We may very well affirm that the 

 Ehinoceros has but one Horn, in spite of all the fabulous 

 Eelations of those we call Naturalists : This Horn is at the 

 extremity of the Nose. He has a sort of Hair in his Tail that 

 is black, as large as a great Knitting-Needle, and harder than 



1 Unicorns' horns. " There are three or four pretended Unicorn's 

 Hums in this Cabinet (that of Manfredi Settak, at Milan) ; for tho' it 

 be beyond dispute that they are properly no more than the teeth of a 

 certain Fish found in the Northern Seas, yet here, as well as in the 

 Venetian Treasury, and other places where they are preserv'd, they 

 retain still the Opinion, that they grow on the Head of that imaginary 

 four-legg'd terrestrial Creature. There are also some Foi>fiil Horns 

 exactly like those that grow on Fishes, tho' of a very different matter." 

 (Max. Misson, Letter xxxi.) 



" Est bos cervi figura, cujus a media fronte inter aures unum cornu 

 exsistit excelsius, magisque directum his, qua3 nobis nota sunt cornibus. 

 Ab ejus summo sicut palmge rami quam late diffunduntur. Eadem est 

 fpemiijse marisque natura, eadem forma magnitudo cornuum." (De Hello 

 Galileo, lib. vi, cap. 26.) 



" The figures of the rhinoceros given in the original illustration 

 which accompanies the text are taken from an illustration used by 

 Father Tachard, before quoted (/. c, small edition, p. 82 ; large edition, 

 p. 104), which is exaggerated in Leguat's reproduction, and from other 

 contemporaneous works. 



f i. 



