LIPE-FOKM IN AKT. 



293 



The hypothesis of Ehrenberg* tliat the Sphinx-head was derived from that of the 

 baboon is ingenious if not in full harmony with the theory of Birclif that this mystic 

 form is of Indian origin — and is part of the primeval stock of " daemons of terrific 

 form, who roam as bears and lions through the vast forest, or rest in the mountain's 

 caverned sides." The figure of a leonine monster, common among Chinese wood- 

 carving, is undoubtedly a lion, as can be seen by comparing it with the SinJias of 

 the Hindoo-Buddhistic ornament. It is a noteworthy fact that the flank of this image 

 is marked by a stellated figure, almost identical with an ornament similarly placed 

 in the Hindoo Sinhas, in the Assyrian lion (Layard, pL 131), in the Moslem animal 

 figures (Murray, xlviii), and in the Egyptian lion (Lepsius, A, vol. II, pi. 89). 



(h.) The Zoo-Myth. It would be an error to suppose, however, that " monsters," 

 either by addition of parts like unto themselves, or of combinations of diverse natures, 

 are of necessity symbolical. Many of these have doubtless originated through miscon- 

 ception of the shapes of little known animals. 



What we may term fabulous animals in the proper sense of that term, that is 

 those drawn up from fabulous accounts, — may be placed in this division of conven- 

 tionalisms. We can readily explain their appearance in art by one Avord — ignorance. 



A migratiug people no longer content with the products of their own land, and 

 endeavoring to secure advantages by incursions into another, would naturally 

 encounter many novel forms of life. The more striking of these would be accredited 

 to the miraculous or the monstrous. Shapes when thus once established, might 

 persist for an indefinite time and serve in their turn to furnish models for yet another 

 series. When we recall the narrow limits which sometimes separate faunae, as for 

 example the deep channel of but fifteen miles in width, which flows between the 

 islands of Bali and Lombok, and serving as the boundary between the Indo-Malayan 

 and the Austro-Malayan faunae,^ or what is better known, though less distinctive, 

 the narrow Dardanelles, which divide the Asian from the Mediterranean life, — it is a 

 matter of surprise that figures of exotic forms are not more frequently seen in the 

 primitive art record. 



What will apply to the invader is true of the invaded, conceding of course that 

 a people thus encountered, is sufficiently advanced to embrace the opportunity of 

 enriching its own designs. In an Esquimaux drawing in the ZSTational ]Museum of 

 Washington, we find recognizable figures of the reindeer, along side of a monstrous 

 outline significant of nothing that is on the face of the earth, or in the waters under 



* Uebci- (len-Oyiioco))lialus uiid dea Sphinx der Egyptien, etc., Trans. Berlin Acad., 1834. 



f Bircli, Egyptian Aiitiq.. T, 2'26. 



I The :\ralayan Archipelago, AVallacc, 45. 



A. P. S. — VOL. XV. 3t. 



