LIFE-PORM IN ART. 



295 



Fig. 19. Fig. 20. 



Mounted Spaniards of Aztec Design. 



accurately drawn (Fig. 20).* 'Now let it be supposed that the Spaniard innnediately 

 after this incursion had withdrawn from the coast — ^is it not possible that the puma- 

 headed figure would have passed into the traditions of the Aztecs as a fabulous visi- 

 tor? I^or is it asserting too much to say that under similar circumstances a Centaur- 

 like myth might have thus sprung into existence for we are told that the horse ex- 

 cited great alarm in the minds of the Peruvians upon witnessing the Spanish cavalry 

 dismount ; "these simple people thinking that the rider and the horse were one."f 



(i.) The Errors of Naturalists in deincting Animals. In proof of the manner 

 in which figures of exotic animals may undergo modifications, even when drawn for 

 zoological purposes, we may allude to the history of the Walrus as given by G-ray;;: 

 (Fig. 21). Surely this figure is no more than the merest dream-portrait of Trichetus, 



Fig. 31. 



Figure of Walrus, after Olans Magnus. 



yet it was at one time, no doubt, a fair diagrammatic expression of what was 

 known of its proportions. 



Pare§ has given us an illustration of a combat between an elephant and 



* Codex Bodleianse, Kingsborougli Coll., pi. 41. 

 t Conquest of Peru, Prcscott, I, 254. 



X Attitudes and Figures of tlie Morse, J. E. Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. of Loud. 1858, p. 112. 

 § The works of that famous chirurgoon, Ambroise Pare, (Trans.) London, l(i40, p. 45. 



