4 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. I. 
dent and revered teacher, Hunter, whatever fossil 
remains might fall in his way.’ 
Owen was evidently regarded more or less, 
all through his life, as legitimate prey to the 
numerous inquirers as to the nature and habits of 
such monsters as the cockatrice, the phcenix, and 
the bunyip (this last monster being an imaginary 
creature which hailed from Australia, whose skull 
turned out to be merely that of an embryo sheep). 
He has left a description of his interview with an 
Oriental personage who had come to inquire 
about the phoenix. 
On April 15 he writes: ‘A grave Oriental 
with his interpreter were ushered into my study, 
as I was preparing my lecture. A fter due salaams 
and the visitors seated, the interpreter stated that 
they were from the Turkish Embassy in order to 
ask my opinion of the phoenix ; whether I believed 
there had ever been such a bird, and what was 
the last scientific intelligence regardino- it. Of 
course I told them nothing was known beyond old 
tradition. The Turk then took from an inner 
recess of his vest a crimson velvet case, which 
contained a most beautiful ladle, the handle of 
carved coral and gold, jewelled, the bowl of a kind 
of fine horny material, half rose colour and half 
cream colour, united at an angle. This, with a few 
similar ladles, had been in the Sultan’s jewel-h'ouse 
for many centuries, and was held to be made— the 
bowl— out of the beak of the phcenix. My opinion 
