by an aged cock and hatched in a dunghill,
or some say by a serpent, but this is uncertain.
They who have seen the egg, say that
it has not a shell, but instead of shell a skin
so tough that it can scarcely be broken with
a hatchet.

It is hardly necessary to repeat the well-known
proof of the fine spirit of the Rhinoceros,
that he dies of grief when made a captive.
The Salamander is depicted by the naturalist
on a comfortable litter of fire. It is an
animal without a spleen, and with the liver
on the left side of the body. Pope Alexander
had a robe made of the wool of this
animal, which was not put into water but
into fire when it wanted washing. We will
hurry on to the Unicorn, because the representation
of that animal on the British arms
as of equal size with the lion—although in
other respects accurate—is calculated to give
an exceedingly erroneous impression. The
unicorn is quite a small animal, though noted
for its strength.

Of course the many-headed Hydra is described
with scientific accuracy, and that we
may end the alphabet of beasts with a Z, let
us speak of the Zubro. This beast, which is
depicted throwing into the air three dogs at
a time, and trampling on another, is so swift,
that, it turns round on its own dung as it is
falling, and tosses it back to a great distance
with its horns, in order that it may fall as a
petard among, and suffocate the dogs by
which he is pursued.

We will now treat of surprising birds, and
briefly. The Barliata are a sort of Barnacle
geese, growing at sea on putrid wood, to
which they hang by their beaks till they fall
off. The beaks are, as it were, the stalks by
which they grow. The good bishop, Jacobus
Atheniensis, in a history of Eastern travel,
says that he has seen such birds growing
upon trees by the seashore, and hanging by
the beak as pears hang by the stalk. The
Carista is a little bird that flies unhurt
through fire. Need it be said, that a few
centuries ago, the zoologist included among
birds blowflies and stagbeetles?

There was of course also Fenix, the
Phœnix, dear still to insurance companies,
though why they love it we know not, since
it is a type of nothing else but arson. This
Arabian bird—there is but one—when old,
collects aromatic herbs under a hot sun, and
fans them into flame with its own wings, and
so burns itself up, with the direct purpose of
rising again in an improved state from the
ashes. Manifest arson, gentlemen of the
Phœnix Fire Office! The new Phœnix first
appears in the ashes as a worm, but grows
rapidly; and this indubitable fact in natural
history used to be taken as a proof of the
resurrection. Of Grippes, the griffin, and his
deeds in Hyperborean mountains, we need
only say, that here he is among the other
birds; here too is Harpia, the harpy. Then
there is Merops, an earth-loving bird, that
builds in the earth, and hides its eggs deep
underground. "I have heard say," said a
young owl, in one of Lessing's fables, "that
there is a bird called Merops, which flies
backwards with its head towards the ground.
Can that be true?" "No, my child, that
is a foolish invention of man. He himself
may be such a Merops, for he would be too
happy to fly up to heaven without leaving
the earth an instant out of sight."

Is the Ossifrago another of these human
birds? Its leading character is a great love
for marrow-bones, which it takes up into the
air and drops, when it desires to crack them
and enjoy the marrow.

The story of the Pelican is not so wholly
creditable to that bird as is most commonly
supposed. Inhabiting the waste places of the
Nile, it behaves cruelly to its young before it
gives its blood for them. Our naturalist says
that the young pelicans, when they begin to
grow, beat their parents in the face. The angry
parents strike again and slay them. After
which they sorrow for three days. On the
third day, the mother strikes her rib, and
opening her own side, bends over the dead
little ones, and pours her blood upon them.
By this they are restored to life. We dare
not point out in an article of this description,
what portions of the story of the pelican have
caused that bird to be accepted as a Christian
symbol.

The Piralis is a four-legged fly (and a fly
is a bird) born out of the fire of ovens. The
Porphirio is a two-legged bird, semi-aquatic,
having one foot with free claws, and the
other webbed.

We pass from birds to fishes; but the
fancy of the old naturalist passed out of all
ken, in treating of the wonders of the sea.
There were sea-horses, sea-lions, sea-hares
(awfully poisonous), sea-wolves, sea-swine,
sea-locusts, and many more, pictured in books
with a few fins and scales, as really horses,
lions, hares, wolves, swine, and locusts.
There was the Chilon, with a man's head,
living frugally on nothing more than his own
viscous humours. There was the Balena, not
so very like a whale, most cruel to its mate.
There were those marvels, the dolphins, who
swam about with their babies at the breast,
and their eyes in their blade bones, who dig
graves for their deceased parents and friends,
follow them in funeral procession, and bury
them in submarine cemeteries, out of the
way of the fishes. There was that strange
fish the Dies, with two wings and two legs,
which, in the perfect state lived only for a
day. There is the Phoca, which is the sea-ox,
another oceanic brute, who is perpetually
fighting with his wife until he kills her.
Always remaining in the same spot, when he
has killed one wife, he disposes of her body,
and takes another, so playing Henry the
Eighth to a series of wives, until he either
dies himself, or finds a mate who is a match
for him.