st he sees the life of the body--"And that gets us no further!"
sighed Durtal.

"This is beside the mark. We must find some other symbolism, closer and
clearer.

"Here the classification of naturalists would be useless, for a biped
and a reptile not unfrequently bear the same interpretation as emblems.
The simplest plan will be to divide the Church menagerie into two large
classes, real beasts and monsters; there is no creature that we may not
include in one or the other category."

Durtal paused to reflect:

"Nevertheless to arrive at a clearer notion and better appreciate the
importance of certain families in Catholic Mythography, we had better
first take out all those animals which symbolize God, the Virgin, and
the Devil, setting them aside to be referred to when they may elucidate
other figures; and at the same time weed out those which apply to the
Evangelists and are combined in the figures of the Tetramorph.

"The surface thus being removed, we may investigate the remainder, the
figurative language of ordinary or monstrous beings.

"The animal emblems of God are numerous; the Scriptures are filled with
creatures emblematic of the Saviour. David compares Him, by comparing
himself, to the pelican in the wilderness, to the owl in its nest, to a
sparrow alone on the house-top, to the dove, to a thirsting hart; the
Psalms are a treasury of analogies with His qualities and His names.

"Saint Isidor of Seville--Monseigneur Sainct Ysidore, as the naturalists
of old are wont to call him--figures Jesus as a lamb by reason of his
innocence, as a ram because He is the head of the Flock, even as a
he-goat because the Redeemer was subject to the flesh of iniquity.

"Some took as His image the ox, the sheep, and the calf, as beasts meet
for sacrifice, and others those animals that symbolize the elements: the
lion, the eagle, the dolphin, the salamander--the kings of the earth,
air, water, and fire. Some again, as Saint Melito, saw Him in the kid,
the deer, and even in the camel, which, however, according to another
passage of the same author, personifies a love of flattery and of vain
praise. Others again find Him in the scarabaeus, as Saint Euchre does in
the bee; still, the bee is regarded by Raban Maur as the unclean sinner.
Christ's Resurrection is, to yet other writers, symbolized by the
Phoenix and the cock, and His wrath and power by the rhinoceros and the
buffalo.

"The iconography of the Virgin is less puzzl