^18 CLASS REPTILIA. 



watch over the security of hidden treasures which had been 

 confided to their care. If we open the books, in which are 

 preserved the traditions of the earlier ages of the world, if 

 we survey the heroic history of Greece, or the Roman Fasti, 

 if we consult that of the people who to the middle age co- 

 vered the soil of Germany and Gaul, if we listen to the 

 recitals of travellers, the same tales of mystery and marvel 

 greet our eyes in every page, and echo in our ears at every 

 instant. 



We find the dragon, consecrated by the religion of the 

 earliest people, become the object of their mythology. 

 " Rendered celebrated," says the eloquent Lacepede, " by 

 the songs of Greece and Rome, the principal ornament of 

 pious fables imagined in more recent times, conquered by 

 heroes, and even by youthful heroines, who were contend- 

 ing for a divine law — adopted by a second mythology which 

 placed the fairies on the throne of the enchantresses of old, 

 became the emblem of the splendid actions of valiant knights ; 

 he has enlivened modern, as he animated ancient poetry. 



" Proclaimed by the severe voice of history, every where 

 described, every where celebrated, every where dreaded ; 

 exhibited under all forms, always clothed with tremendous 

 power, and immolating his victims by a single glance ; 

 transporting himself through the midst of the clouds with 

 the rapidity of lightning ; dissipating the darkness of night, 

 by the terrific splendour of his glaring eyes ; vmiting the 

 agility of the eagle, the strength of the lion, the magnitude 

 of the giant serpent ; sometimes presented under a human 

 figure, endowed with an intelligence almost divine, and 

 adored even in our own days in the great empires of the 

 east — the dragon, in short has been all in all, and every 

 where to be found except in nature." 



Such were the dragons, some of which were winged, and 

 vomited flames, while others were deprived of feet; such were 



