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Gomara and Torquemada * call it espadarte, a 

 name by which the Spaniards denote the nar- 

 wal, the great tooth of which is known by the 

 name of the unicorn's horn. Boturini took this 

 horn for a harpoon, and erroneously translated 

 cipactli by serpent armed with harpoons. As 

 this sign does not represent a real animal, it is 

 natural enough, that its form should vary more 

 than that of any other sign. Sometimes the 

 horn appears a lengthening of the muzzle, as in 

 the famous fish oxyrinchus, represented in the 

 place of the southern fish under the belly of 

 Capricorn, in some Indian planispheres f : at 

 other times the horn is entirely wanting 1 . On 

 casting our eyes on the figures in plate 23d and 

 27th, taken from very ancient drawings and re- 

 liefs, we see how much Valades, Boturini, and 

 Clavigero were mistaken, in representing the 

 first hieroglyphic of the Mexican days as a 

 shark, or a lizard. In the manuscript in the 

 Borgian museum, the head of cipactli resembles 

 that of a crocodile ; and this same name of cro- 

 codile is given by Sonnerat to the tenth sign of 

 the Indian zodiac, which is our Capricorn. 



Besides, the idea of the sea animal, cipactli, is 

 connected in the Mexican mythology with the 

 history of a man, who, at the epocha of the de- 



* Conquista, fol. 119. Mon. ind., torn. 3, j?. 223. 

 t Philos. Transact., 1772, p. 353. 

 -i 2 



