LIZARDS. 



419 



is one of those animals mixed up in the superstitious traditions of the ancients, and 

 still regarded by some with the greatest awe, being to them the king of the reptile 

 race, bearing a crown as a symbol of his sovereign rule. It was thought that he had 

 no regular occupation, and that he feasted on an egg laid by a cock and incubated by 

 a snake, though that the egg was thus incubated was denied by some ' naturalists,' 

 who maintained that a toad performed that arduous task. From the glance of this 



v\^J- 



Fio, 242. — Basiliscus mitratus, basilisk. 



mighty reptile's eye, death and destruction spread. " This poison," writes an author, 

 " infecteth the air, and the air so infected killeth all living things, and likewise all 

 green things, fruits and plants of the earth ; it burneth up the grass whereupon it 

 goeth or creepeth, and the fouls of the air fall down dead when they come near his 

 den or lodging; Sometimes he biteth a man or beast, and by that wound the blood 

 turneth into choler, and so the whole body becometh yellow or gold, presently killing 

 all that touch it or come near it." The cock was the only animal before whom this 



