4 The Animal-Lore of Shah spear e’s Time. 
errors were thus perpetuated. Guillim, the quaint old 
herald, quotes texts to prove the correctness of his 
descriptions of various animals, in the same way that 
modern writers quote the investigations and experiments 
of Darwin or Huxley. 
The myth-making tendency of the human mind has 
also had an effect on man’s study of nature. What Mr. 
Tylor calls “ myths of observation,” arose from a laudable 
anxiety to account for certain known phenomena. When 
fossil ammonites were found in the solid rock, miles away 
from the sea-shore, how was it possible to explain their 
presence better than by the statement that they were 
snakes turned into stones by the prayers of some local 
saint ? Huge bones of fossil mammals, far exceeding in 
size those of living men, were obviously the limbs of 
some giant warrior slain in combat. These theories once 
started, poetry and imagination were ready to clothe the 
bare statement with ornament, and legends of early 
heroes, Guy of Warwick, Bevis of Southampton, and 
their compeers in might, grew with rapidity, and were 
universally believed. 
It does not follow that all the absurd notions con¬ 
nected with animals that are found in the works of this 
period were generally, credited at the time an author 
wrote. These fanciful theories were often merely adopted 
as metaphors and similes; but at the same time writers 
would not care to be behind the age, and would not 
willingly use expressions which could only provoke 
ridicule on the part of their readers. For example, the 
nightingale is invariably spoken of in the time of 
Elizabeth as of the feminine gender, while in our own 
day the knowledge that it is the male bird which sings 
is reflected in the poetry of our time. 
Opportunities for the study of the habits of animals 
were by no means frequent. Although menageries have 
existed from the earliest times, they were chiefly used 
