148 BOMBAY DUCKS 
“lytylle stature,” being “three span long”; but they 
are “right fair and gentylle.” They marry when they 
are six months old and live “but six year, or seven at 
the most.” Next come the dwarfs. These are small 
men, but bigger than the pigmies. They possess the 
useful property of being able to live on the smell of 
apples. 
Want of space prevents more than the mention of 
mermen and mermaids, crane-headed men, headless 
men, neckless men, noseless men, and men minus one 
or all the other organs. There were, also, one-eyed 
men, four-eyed men, tailed men. Then there was the 
hippos, the counterpart of the centaur of classical 
writers. The monstrum triceps capite vulpis, draconis et 
aqutle deserves special notice, as showing the lengths 
to which medieval imagination used to go, This was a 
creature with a human body and legs covered with 
scales, having three heads resembling those of a wolf, a 
dragon, and an eagle. One of the arms was that of a 
man, while the other was an eagle’s wing. The finish- 
ing touch to this monster was a horse’s tail ! 
As specimens of the creatures which fill up the 
medizval bestiaries I may mention unicorns, phoenixes, 
cockatrices—the products of cocks’ eggs—dragons, rocs 
—hbirds that used to amuse themselves by swooping 
down and carrying off elephants—basilisks, griffins, 
camel-leopards, and dozens of other grotesque creatures. 
As has already been remarked, the ancients, even 
when they wrote about the birds they could see every 
day of their lives, made no attempt to study their 
habits or manner of life ; they were content to relate all 
