MAMMALOaY. 



Whether the animals denominated by Naturalists the Orang- 

 outangs, that is the rufous species and the black, were known 



Flying Dragons,* Cockatrices,t and Sea Devils^ Sea Monks § and 

 Bishops,|| British White Parrots,ir and the Mermaids of the Scottish 



* " Flying Dragons." Generally formed of the skin of Squalus Squatina, the 

 Angel Shark, Donovan's British Fishes, vol. 1, plate 17, sometimes of Kaja Clavata, 

 the Thorn -Back, Donovan's British Fishes, \ol. 2, plate 2 6, or of Raja Pastinacea, the 

 Sting Ray, distinguished by the formidable serrated spine or spines of its tail, 

 Donovan's British Fishes,Yol. 6, plate 99, or Raia Rubus, the Rough Ray, Donovan's 

 British Fishes, vol. 1, plate 20. 



t " Cockatrices." We once received a specimen of this with a declaration of 

 its having been found alive by a fisherman in the English Channel, from whom it was 

 immediately purchased for a few pence. This fact need not be doubted, for it was no 

 other than a small specimen of the Angel Shark, Squalus Squatina, (Donovan's 

 British Fishes, vol. 1, plate 17) which the fishermen call the fiddle fish, from the 

 general similitude of its form to the figure of that instrument of music. But subse- 

 quently the legs of a cock armed with very formidable spurs had been ingeniously 

 added, upon which it was perched like a bird on a twig of a tree, and the whole form 

 otherwise tortured into a fantastical shape that is usually ascribed to that creature 

 of imagination denominated a dragon. We have seen its similitude among the 

 Chinese emblems, and it may be added that since this fish inhabits most seas, and 

 those of China and Japan amongst others, the Cockatrice alluded to might possibly 

 be another specimen of oriental ingenuity, as well as the " Mermaid" appears to be, 

 upon which we have so fully commented. See Hager's Pantheon Chinoise, and 

 Kaempf. Voy. Japan, &c. 



t " Sea Devils." These are usually artificial distortions of the different species 

 of the Ray Tribe above-mentioned, bent into various forms by means of wires while 

 recent, and which retaining the form thus given to them, when dry appear like 

 monsters. A formidable object of this kind occurs in " Rariora Musei Besleriani," 

 tab. XV. f. 3. which had long passed for a true Dragon. Lockner, the author of that 

 work, was, however, convinced of its being a fabrication: it was one of the Ray 

 genus, the skin of which is covered with hirsute spines or prickles, and so far as we 

 can judge from the figure of distortion in the plate of that work, the Raia Clavata 

 above-mentioned. 



§ Sea Monks." || " Sea Bishops." These are minutely described in the differ- 

 ent editions of Walton, on the authority of Dubravius, &c., and is even figured in 

 Walton's Work, by Hawkins. This also was an artificial distortion of the Angel 

 Shark, Squalus Squatina above-mentioned, with some additional decorations and 

 improvements, the spoils of other fishes. 



IT ^' British White Parrot." The young of the Common Cuckow ; a mere 

 VOL. II. Q 



