"I have made a list for you from the works of Fillion and of Lesetre of
the blunders made by the translators of the Bible when they disguised
real beasts under chimerical names," said the Abbe Plomb. "This, in a
few words, is the upshot of my researches.

"There was never any mythological fauna in the Sacred Books. The Hebrew
text was misread by those who translated it into Greek and Latin, and
the strange zoology that we find in certain chapters of Isaiah and Job
is easily reduced to the nomenclature of well-known creatures.

"Thus the onocentaurs and sirens, spoken of by the Prophet, are neither
more nor less than jackals, if we examine the Hebrew original. The
lamia, a vampire, half woman and half serpent like the wyvern, is a
night bird, the white or the screech owl; the satyrs and fauns, the
hairy beasts spoken of in the Vulgate, are, after all, no more than wild
goats--'schirim,' as they are called in the Mosaic original.

"The reptile so frequently mentioned in the Bible under the name of
'dragon' is indicated in the original by various words, which sometimes
mean the serpent or the crocodile, sometimes the jackal, and sometimes
the whale; and the famous unicorn of the Scriptures is merely the
primaeval bull or auroch, which is to be seen on the Assyrian
bas-reliefs--a race now dying out, lingering only in the remotest parts
of Lithuania and the Caucasus."

"And Behemoth and Leviathan, spoken of by Job?"

"The word Behemoth is a plural form in Hebrew meaning Excellence. It
designates a prodigious and enormous beast--the rhinoceros, perhaps, or
the hippopotamus. As to Leviathan, it was a huge reptile, a gigantic
python."

"That is a pity," said Durtal. "Imaginary zoology was far more
amusing!--Why, what is this vegetable?" he inquired, as he tasted a
curious stew of greens.

"Dandelions cut up and boiled with shreds of bacon," replied Madame
Bavoil. "Do you like the dish, our friend?"

"Indeed I do. Your dandelions are to garden spinach and chicory what the
wild duck is to the tame, or the hare to the rabbit. And it is a fact
that garden plants are generally poor and tasteless, while those that
grow wild have a certain astringency and pleasant bitter flavour. It is
the venison of vegetables that you have given us, Madame Bavoil!"

"I fancy," said the Abbe Plomb, who had been thoughtful, "that just as
we tried to compile a mystic flora the other day, we might make a list
of the deadly sins as represent