know of the existence of every animal which inhabits the deep sea.

Numerous have been the attempts made to explain away sea-serpents—a school of porpoises, sharks, floating seaweed, a devil-fish trailing its long limbs behind it, a water-spout,-these are among the efforts to solve the problem; but those who have been among the fortunate few to obtain a glimpse of the mysterious monsters declare that none of these explanations will fully meet the case, and certainly they do not explain away the two monsters described above. We, therefore, who have not been so fortunate as to see a sea-serpent for ourselves must patiently reserve our criticism until such time as one is harpooned and towed into harbour.

CREATURES OF THE

IMAGINATION.

"Far away in the twilight-time
Of every people, in every clime,
Dragons, and griffins, and monsters dire,
Born of water, and air, and fire,

Or nursed, like the python, in the mud
And ooze of the old Deucalion flood,
Crawl and wriggle and foam with rage
Through dusk tradition and ballad age."
- Whittier.

HOWEVER great a part imagination has played in crediting certain members of the animal kingdom with attributes and powers which they do not possess, the height of superstition is reached in the belief in monstrosities and creatures which have never had any real existence. The origin of most of these fabulous animals is lost in the dim reaches of antiquity, and only vague guesses can be made in respect thereof. It may be safely assumed, however, that many of them have developed by a gradual process of exaggeration-much in the same way as the herring on the beach became a whale. Others have been created by a direct effort of the imagination.

Bottiger, in writing of that monster of antiquity the Griffin, says it was merely the creation of Indian tapestry-makers, but that the Greeks, seeing the tapestry at the court of the King of Persia, thought the animals depicted upon it were really inhabitants of India. It seems highly probable, therefore, that certain other fabulous animals have had a similar origin; while others again, such as the cockatrice and the basilisk, owe their creation to an exaggerated idea of the power of serpents, consequent upon the utter loathing in which they are universally held. But it is not my intention here to endeavour to trace the origin of these creatures of the imagination. In respect of many of them the attempt would be futile, for, if I may so state the case, they have no beginning; they come up to us vaguely from the antediluvian age, a combined product of creation and imagination. Moreover, no good service could be rendered by such an effort. It will therefore be my purpose to deal only with such of the fabulous animals as I think are of special interest by reason of their prominence in our literature.

It is much to be regretted that several of these monstrosities have been permitted to enter the pages of Holy Scripture: in most instances the translation is an utter violation of the original. Of course the reason is not far to seek. In the days of the Authorised Version the creatures to which I am referring the cockatrice, dragon, satyr, unicorn, and others were believed to have a real existence, and

their place in our sacred writings came largely as a matter of course, but their presence there to-day creates a real difficulty.

The Revised Version of the Bible has gone very far towards removing this difficulty by giving to the animals wrongly translated their proper names; even now there are several passages which are in need of alteration. To any ordinary reader, the appearance in the sacred writings of creatures which are nowadays commonly known to have had no real existence is bewildering, and probably not a little unsettling. To such a reader my earnest advice is to study any good Natural History-such, for instance, as Dr. Tristram's, from which I have more than once quoted—and his difficulties will quickly be swept away. The creatures that have caused him so much perplexity-such as the dragon and the cockatrice-he will find are merely other names for animals with which he is, for the most part, quite familiar.

or

Basilisk and Cockatrice have now become interchangeable names for the same fabulous reptile, but originally they were distinct. The basilisk, regulus of the ancients, was the king of all serpents; and, according to Pliny, was found in the African deserts, where it would appear to be a veritable despot. All other snakes fled from its awful presence with horrified precipitation; and even the flowers and fruits perished when touched by the poisonous fumes of its scorching breath.

"What shield of Ajax could avoid their death,
By th' basilisk, whose pestilential breath
Doth pierce firm marble, and whose baneful ey
Wounds with a glance so that the soundest dy?"

Its progression was majestic in the extreme. It held itself erect, not trailing its body as in the manner of other serpents. Its eyes were red and fiery, its face pointed, and upon its head, as token of its sovereignty, it wore a crown. Shelley tells us that its skin was "green and golden," but these colours are apparently chosen for the sake of euphony, and not from any intention to describe the reptile accurately. Far otherwise, however, is the desire of the sagacious naturalist whose opinions on several matters of natural history I have introduced into this volume. He plunges boldly into a description of an animal which exists only in imagination, and his description, to make matters worse, is plagiaristic:

"The cockatrice, or basilisk, is a kind of serpent of a reddish colour, and has a thick body, fiery eyes, and a sharp head, on which it wears a crest that looks like a crown. It has the honour to be called the king of serpents, because of its crown and majestic pace; and also because all other serpents are said to fly from its presence with dread. The cockatrice in its motion lifts its head and the fore part of its body upwards, the middle and hinder parts only touching the ground. Its poison is said to be so extremely strong, that if any person is bitten by the serpent death speedily takes place."

It is curious how so many writers who undertake