FABULOUS ANIMALS. 519 
places where treasures lay hidden. Their incessant wrang- 
lings with the Gryphons about gold-mines are mentioned 
by Herodotus and Pliny. Lucan says that they inhabited 
Scythia, and adorned their hair with gold ; that they had 
but one eye in the middle of the forehead, and lived on 
the banks of the gold-sanded river Arimaspes. 
Virgil in his eighth Pastoral mentions this animal, as if 
really existing, but does not give us any description of it ; 
and Claudian, in his Epistle to Serena, alludes to the sup- 
posed fact of their keeping watch over masses of gold in 
the bosom of northern mountains. 
THE PHCENIX. 
THIS was another fabulous bird, and was said to be the 
only one of its kind in the world. When it died it made 
itself a funeral pile, on which it was burnt, and a new 
Phoenix rose from its ashes. 
THE MERMAID, OR SIREN. 
THE existence of an animal, half a woman and half a fish, 
has long been talked of, believed, disbelieved, and 
doubted. Homer is the first who speaks of such beings, 
which he styles Sirens ; but we do not find that he gives 
any description of their shape ; however, it was soon as- 
serted that the Sirens were as Horace, in his " Art of Po- 
etry," paints the monster in one line: 
Above a lovely maid, a fish, below. 
The Sirens were three sisters, whose voice was so de- 
lightfully harmonious, so enticing, that no resistance 
could be made against its powerful charms; but "'twas 
death to hear," for they led the navigators and their ships 
