the formidable nature of the tongue of the rhinoceros is
very old and wide-spread, though I can find no foundation for it but the
rough _appearance_ of the organ. ["His tongue also is somewhat of a
rarity, for, if he can get any of his antagonists down, he will lick them
so clean, that he leaves neither skin nor flesh to cover his bones." (_A.
Hamilton_, ed. 1727, II. 24. _M.S. Note of Yule_.) Compare what is said of
the tongue of the Yak, I. p. 277.--H.C.] The Chinese have the belief, and
the Jesuit Lecomte attests it from professed observation of the animal in
confinement. (_Chin. Repos._ VII. 137; _Lecomte_, II. 406.) [In a Chinese
work quoted by Mr. Groeneveldt (_T'oung Pao_, VII. No. 2, abst. p. 19) we
read that "the rhinoceros has thorns on its tongue and always eats the
thorns of plants and trees, but never grasses or leaves."--H.C.]

The legend to which Marco alludes, about the Unicorn allowing itself to be
ensnared by a maiden (and of which Marsden has made an odd perversion in
his translation, whilst indicating the true meaning in his note), is also
an old and general one. It will be found, for example, in Brunetto Latini,
in the _Image du Monde_, in the _Mirabilia of Jordanus_,[6] and in the
verses of Tzetzes. The latter represents Monoceros as attracted not by the
maiden's charms but by her perfumery. So he is inveigled and blindfolded
by a stout young knave, disguised as a maiden and drenched with scent:--

"'Tis then the huntsmen hasten up, abandoning their ambush;
Clean from his head they chop his horn, prized antidote to poison;
And let the docked and luckless beast escape into the jungles."
--V. 399, seqq.

In the cut which we give of this from a mediaeval source the horn of the
unicorn is evidently the tusk of a _narwhal_. This confusion arose very
early, as may be seen from its occurrence in Aelian, who says that the
horn of the unicorn or _Kartazonon_ (the Arab _Karkaddan_ or Rhinoceros)
was not straight but twisted ([Greek: eligmous echon tinas], Hist. An.
xvi. 20). The mistake may also be traced in the illustrations to Cosmas
Indicopleustes from his own drawings, and it long endured, as may be seen
in Jerome Cardan's description of a unicorn's horn which he saw suspended
in the church of St. Denis; as well as in a circumstance related by P.
della Valle (II. 491; and Cardan, _de Varietate_, c. xcvii.). Indeed the
supporter of the Royal arms retains the narwhal horn. To this popular
erro