It appears that Pliny was the first to discover this singular animal, and
his description of it is recorded in many of those quaint mediaeval
natural history volumes known as 'Bestiaries.' The Reverend Edward
Topsell, in his 'Historie of Foure-footed Beasts' (folio, 1607) thus
describes it:

'There is bred in Ethiopia a certain strange beast about the bignesse of
a sea-horse, being of colour blacke or brownish: it hath the cheeks of a
Boare, the tayle of an Elephant, and hornes above a cubit long, which are
moveable upon his head at his owne pleasure like eares; now standing one
way, and anone moving another way, as he needeth in fighting with other
Beastes, for they stand not stiffe but bend flexibly, and when he
fighteth he always stretcheth out the one, and holdeth in the other, for
purpose as it may seeme, that if one of them may be blunted or broken,
then hee may defend himselfe with the other. It may well be compared to a
sea-horse, for above all other places it loveth best the waters.'

Unfortunately no specimen has been seen by travellers for some years now,
so probably it is quite extinct. Certainly you will not find a jall in
the Zoo, or even at South Kensington, though you may see a very excellent
statue of him on King Henry VIII.'s bridge at Hampton Court.

There are numerous bibliographies of works upon all classes of animals,
fish, flesh, and fowl--even the good red herring.[86] For these you must
turn to Mr. W. P. Courtney's invaluable work. The 'Bibliographia
Zoologiae et Geologiae, a General Catalogue of all Books on Zoology and
Geology,' was compiled by L. Agassiz and H. E. Strickland for the Ray
Society--four octavo volumes, published between 1848 and 1854. A
'Bibliotheca Entomologica,' by H. A. Hagen, appeared at Leipzig, two
octavo volumes, in 1862-63.

[Sidenote: Nautical and Naval.]

42. The next subject, Nautical and Naval, will comprise chiefly
borrowings from other headings; for it will necessarily include books of
voyages and discoveries, works on navigation, meteorology, and
oceanography, as well as geographical books, and such purely nautical
volumes as dictionaries of the marine, the history of ships and
shipping, and accounts of the navy and mercantile fleet. There is a
number of early works on the astrolabe and globes, but you must not
expect easily to come across 'The Rutter of the Sea,' printed by Robert
Copland and Richard Bankes in 1528. It is the first English printed book
on N