EDITOBIAL GLEANINGS. 289 



und Mythologie der alteu Aegypter,' pp. 24, 105)? How animals with 

 crocodiles' heads were supposed to sing, I do not know. I presume that 

 the phoenix (which was confused apparently with the swan) sang before it 

 had the misfortune to get a crocodile's head, and that the crocodile learned 

 the secret of the phcenix ! The references in the introduction to the dragon 

 are also very interesting. Has Dr. James intentionally omitted mentioning 

 the old Babylonian dragon-myth ? It is true this has become sadly distorted. 

 In the act of closing this letter I find in the Palestine Fund ' Quarterly State- 

 ment' for July, 1888, a note by Col. Conder on crocodiles in Palestine, in 

 which he points out that these animals are mentioned as 'corcodrils' by 

 Sir John Maundeville; this is very near Chalkadri. He also quotes from 

 a tract of the thirteenth century, showing that crocodiles were then called 

 c cocatrices.' " 



The author of the above has subsequently added the following note to 

 the same journal :— 



" Mr. H. Bradley points out to me that the Chalkadri of the Slavonic 

 Enoch would naturally arise out of calcatrlx (cf. ' Cockatrice' in the ' New 

 English Dictionary '). Calcatrix is a literal translation of l^vzv^uv ; the 

 ichneumon and the crocodile were confounded. This would introduce a 

 fresh element into the strange mingling of animals represented by Chalkadri, 

 and an element entirely inconsistent both with the phoenix and with the 

 crocodile from the point of view of (Egyptian) solar mythology. For the sun- 

 god hated the ichneumon (the symbol of Set) as much as he must have loved 

 the phoenix and the crocodile (his own symbols). That the writer takes 

 the most important part of the Chalkadri (the head) from the crocodile is, 

 however, satisfactory to a mythologist, and we may, perhaps, rest assured 

 now, thanks to M. Berger and Mr. Bradley, that the Chalkadri was in no 

 sense either a serpent or (in spite of its wings) a bird. And if M. Berger 

 pointed in the right direction, the 'New English Dictionary' suggests the 

 probably right conclusion." 



At the May meeting of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society 

 Mr. Southwell exhibited a remarkably fine example of the old race of 

 Norfolk Great Bustards, which had recently come into his possession, and 

 had not hitherto been recorded. The specimen is a very old male, and is 

 even larger than the fine male killed in 1818, now in the Castle Museum ; 

 it was shot at S waff ham early in the present century, probably about 1830, 

 by a Mr. Glasse, Q.C., who then occupied Vere Lodge, Raynham, near 

 Fakenham, Norfolk, as a shooting box. It remained in the possession of 

 the Glasse family until recently sold with the effects of the daughter, 

 Miss Glasse, who died at Bournemouth. 



