The Bagwyn is an imaginary animal with the head of and much like the heraldic antelope, but with the body and tail of a horse, and the horns long and curved backwards. It is difficult to say what it is intended to represent, and I can give no instance in which it occurs.
The Musimon is a fabulous animal with the body and feet of a goat and the head of a ram, with four horns. It is supposed to be the hybrid between the ram and the goat, the four horns being the two straight ones of the goat and the two curled ones of the ram. Though no heraldic instance is known to me, one cannot definitely say such an animal never existed. Another name for it is the tityron.
The Opinicus (Fig. 439) is another monster seldom met with in armory. When it does occur it is represented as a winged gryphon, with a lion's legs and short tail. Another description of it gives it the
body and forelegs of a lion, the head, neck, and wings of an eagle, and the tail of a camel. It is the crest of the Livery Company of Barbers in London, which doubtless gives us the origin of it in the recent grant of arms to Sir Frederick Treves, Bart. Sometimes the wings are omitted.
The Manticora, Mantegre, or Man-Tiger is the same as the man-lion, but has horns attached to its forehead.
The Hippogriff has the head, wings and foreclaws of the griffin united to the hinder part of the body of a horse.
The Calopus or Chatloup is a curious horned animal difficult to describe, but which appears to have been at one time the badge of the Foljambe family. No doubt, as the name would seem to indicate, it is a variant of the wolf.
Many of the foregoing animals, particularly those which are or are supposed to be hybrids, are, however well they may be depicted, ugly, inartistic, and unnecessary. Their representation leaves one with a disappointed feeling of crudity of draughtmanship. No such objection applies to the pegasus, the griffin, the sea-horse, the dragon, or the unicorn, and in these modern days, when the differentiation of well-worn animals is producing singularly inept results, one would urge that the sea-griffin, the sea-stag, the winged bull, the winged stag, the winged lion, and winged heraldic antelope might produce (if the necessity of differentiation continue) very much happier results.