d in the Psalms, it is also taken as the
heathen desiring baptism; a legend attributes to it so vehement a horror
of the Serpent, in other words of the Devil, that whenever it can it
attacks and devours him, but if it subsequently goes for three hours
without drinking, it dies; hence after that meal it runs to and fro in
the forest seeking a spring of which, if it finds one, it drinks, and is
then many years younger. The she-goat is sometimes held in ill-fame as
being akin to the he-goat, but it more often is regarded as the
Well-Beloved, to which the Bride in Canticles compares it. The hedgehog,
hiding in crannies, is interpreted by Saint Melito as the sinner, by
Peter of Capua as the penitent. As to the horse, as a creature of vanity
and pride, it is opposed by Peter Cantor and Adamantius to the ox, which
is all gravity and simplicity. It is well, however, to observe that to
confuse the matter, by presenting the horse under another aspect, Saint
Eucher compares it to a saint, and the Anonymous Monk of Clairvaux
identifies the Devil with the ox. The poor ass is no better treated by
Hugh of Saint Victor, who accuses it of stupidity, by Saint Gregory the
Great, who taxes it with laziness, and Peter of Capua, who speaks of its
lust. It must, however; be observed that Saint Melito compares it with
Christ for its humility, and that the exegetists explain the ass's foal
ridden by Christ on Palm Sunday as an image of the Gentiles, as they
interpret the she-ass that threw Him to mean the Jews.

Finally, two domestic animals dear to man, the cat and the dog, are
generally contemned by the mystics. The dog, typical of sin, says Peter
Cantor, and the most quarrelsome of beasts, adds Hugh of Saint Victor,
is the creature that returns to his vomit; it also prefigures the
reprobates of whom the Apocalypse speaks, who are to be driven out of
the heavenly Jerusalem; Saint Melito speaks of it as the apostate, and
Saint Pacomius as the rapacious monk, but Raban Maur redeems it a little
from this condemnation by specifying it as emblematic of confessors.

The cat, which is but once mentioned in the Bible--in the Book of
Baruch--is invariably abhorred by the primitive naturalists, who accuse
it of embodying treachery and hypocrisy, and of lending its skin to the
Devil, to enable him to appear in its shape to sorcerers.

Durtal turned over a few more pages, discovering that the hare typified
timidity and cowardice, and the snail laziness;