or
this quotation, and the Rev. A. HEADLEY for permission to utilise it.)

The phoenix and griffin we have encountered already in our excursions.
The latter, we are told, inhabits desert places in India, where it can
find nothing for its young to eat. It flies away to other regions
to seek food, and is sufficiently strong to carry off an ox. Thus it
symbolises the devil, who is ever anxious to carry away our souls to
the deserts of hell. Fig. 37 illustrates an example of the use of this
symbolic beast in church architecture.

The mantichora is described by PLINY (whose statements were
unquestioningly accepted by the mediaeval naturalists), on the authority
of CTESIAS (_fl_. 400 B.C.), as having "A triple row of teeth, which fit
into each other like those of a comb, the face and ears of a man, and
azure eyes, is the colour of blood, has the body of the lion, and a tail
ending in a sting, like that of the scorpion. Its voice resembles the
union of the sound of the flute and the trumpet; it is of excessive
swiftness, and is particularly fond of human flesh."(1)

(1) PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. viii. chap. xxx. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S
trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 280.)

Concerning the unicorn, in an eighteenth-century work on natural history
we read that this is "a Beast, which though doubted of by many Writers,
yet is by others thus described: He has but one Horn, and that an
exceedingly rich one, growing out of the middle of his Forehead. His
Head resembles an Hart's, his Feet an Elephant's, his tail a Boar's, and
the rest of his Body an Horse's. The Horn is about a Foot and half in
length. His Voice is like the Lowing of an Ox. His Mane and Hair are
of a yellowish Colour. His Horn is as hard as Iron, and as rough as any
File, twisted or curled, like a flaming Sword; very straight, sharp, and
every where black, excepting the Point. Great Virtues are attributed to
it, in expelling of Poison and curing of several Diseases. He is not
a Beast of prey."(2) The method of capturing the animal believed in
by mediaeval writers was a curious one. The following is a literal
translation from the _Bestiary_ of PHILIPPE DE THAUN (12th century):--

(2) (THOMAS BOREMAN): _A Description of Three Hundred Animals_ (1730),
p. 6.

"Monosceros is an animal which has one horn on its head,
Therefore it is so named; it has the form of a goat,
It is caught by means of a virgin, now hear in what manner.
When a man intends to hunt it a