The old writers had no very definite system, and though the author of the “Book of the 300 Animals” may seem to have exercised a certain fitness in discussing the unicorn directly after the lion, the conjunction is probably wholly accidental, as the creatures dwelt on succeed each other in all such books in the most arbitrary way. The next animal to which we would refer is the wolf. He is not absolutely the next in the series, but we manifestly cannot deal with the whole three hundred, so we pick out here and there divers quaint examples of what we may be allowed to term this unnatural history. We are told that “the wolf is a very ravenous creature, and as dangerous to meet with, when hungry, as any beast whatever, but when his stomach is full, he is to men and beasts as meek as a lamb. When he falls upon a hog or a goat, or such small beasts, he does not immediately kill them, but leads them by the ear, with all the speed he can, to a crew of ravenous wolves, who instantly tear them to pieces.” We should have thought that the reverse had been more probable, that the wolves that had nothing would have come with all the speed they could upon their more successful companion; but if the old writer’s story be true, it opens out a fine trait of unselfishness in the character of this maligned communard. It was an old belief, a fancy that we find in the pages of Pliny, Theocritus, Virgil, and others, that a man becomes dumb if he meets a wolf and the wolf sees him first. A mediæval writer explains this as follows:—“The ground or occasionall originall hereof was probably the amazement and sudden silence the unexpected appearance of Wolves doe often put upon travellers, not by a supposed vapour or venemous emanation, but a vehement fear which naturally produceth obmutescence and sometimes irrecoverable silence. Thus birds are silent in presence of an Hawk, and Pliny saith that Dogges are mute in the shadow of an Hyæna, but thus could not the mouths of worthy Martyrs be stopped, who being exposed not only unto the eyes but the mercilesse teeth of Wolves, gave loud expressions of their faith, and their holy clamours were heard as high as heaven.” Scott refers to the old belief in his “Quentin Durward.” In the eighteenth chapter our readers will find as follows:—“‘Our young companion has seen a wolf,’ said Lady Hameline, ‘and has lost his tongue in consequence.’” The thirteenth animal is the “Rompo” or Man-eater; he is “so called because he feeds upon dead men, to come at which he greedily grubs up the earth off their graves, as if he had notice of somebody there hid. He keeps in the woods; his body is long and slender, being about three feet in length, with a long tail. The negroes say that he does not immediately fall on as soon as he has found the body, but goes round and round it several times as if afraid to seize it. Its head and mouth are like a hare’s, his ears like a man’s, his fore feet like a badger’s, and his hinder feet like a bear’s. It has likewise a mane. This creature is bred in India and Africa.” Concerning the buffalo we read, “It is reported of this creature that when he is hunted or put into a fright he’ll change his colour to the colour of everything he sees; as amongst trees he is green, &c.” The Manticora is one of the strange imaginings of our forefathers. In the illustration in the book (of which our figure is a reproduction) it has a human head and face and a body like that of a lion; a thick mane covers the neck; its tail is much longer in proportion than that of a lion, and has at its extremity a most formidable collection of spiky-looking objects; these in the description are said to be stinging and sharply-pointed quills. He is as big as a lion. “His voice is like a small trumpet. He is so wild that it is very difficult to catch him, and as swift as an hart. With his tail he wounds the hunters, whether they come before him or behind him. When the Indians take a whelp of this beast they bruise its tail to prevent it bearing the sharp quills; then it is tamed without danger.”
The Lamia, too, is an extraordinary creature, and one that our not remote forefathers seem to have thoroughly believed in, for though the author says that there are many fictitious stories respecting it, he goes on to describe it, and gives an illustration. It is thought to be the swiftest of all four-footed creatures, so that its prey can seldom or never escape it. It is said to be bred in Libya, and to have a face like a beautiful woman, while its voice is the hiss of a serpent. The body is covered with scales. The old author tells us that they sometimes devour their own young, and we may fairly hope that this cannibal propensity of theirs is the cause of their disappearance. In earlier times men believed in a monstrous spectre called an Empusa. It could assume various forms, and it was believed to feed on human flesh. The Lamiæ, who took the forms of handsome and graceful women for the purpose of beguiling poor humanity, and then sucked their blood like vampyres and devoured their flesh, were one form of Empusa. The belief in some such creature seems to have been widespread; the myth of the Sirens is, for example, very similar in conception. In Mansfield Parkyns’ “Life in Abyssinia” we read—“There is an animal which I know not where to class, as no European has hitherto succeeded in obtaining a specimen of it. It is supposed by the natives to be far more active, powerful, and dangerous than the lion, and consequently held by them in the greatest possible dread. They look upon it more in the light of an evil spirit, with an animal’s form, than a wild beast; they assert that its face is human.” We learn, however, from the rest of the description, that this creature possesses itself of its prey by force alone; the human face is one further feature of terror, but does not, as in the previous case, serve to beguile mankind and lure them by its beauty to their fate.
The stag is said to be “a great enemy to all kinds of serpents, which he labours to destroy whenever he finds any, but he is afraid of almost all other creatures.” Many of these old beliefs were simply handed down from generation to generation without question, or the opinions of the ancients accepted without experiment or inquiry. This belief of the natural enmity of the stag to the serpent is at least as old as Pliny, and may be found duly set forth in the thirty-third chapter of his eighth book:—“This kind of deere make fight with serpents, and are their natural and mortal enemies; they will follow them to their verie holes, and then by the strength of drawing and snuffing up their wind of their nostrils, force them out whether they will or no. The serpent sometimes climbs upon its back and bites it cruelly, when the stag rushes to some river or fountain and throws itself into the water to rid itself of its enemy.” This old belief made the stag a favourite in the mediæval days of exaggerated symbolism, its ruthless antipathy to the serpent rendering it not inaptly an emblem of the Christian fighting to the death against sin, and finding an antidote to its wounds in the fountain of living water. It was also believed that stags “passe the seas swimming by flockes and whole heards in a long row, each one resting his head upon his fellow next before him; and this they do in course, so as the foremost retireth behind to the hindmost by turnes, one after another.” In this supposed fact the seekers after symbol and hidden meaning found no difficulty in recognising that comfort and support in all their trials that all good men should at all times be ready to afford their fellows.
The tusks of the wild boar, we are told, cut like sharp knives when the animal is alive, but lose their keenness at his death. It is said when this creature is hunted down his tusks are so inflamed that they will burn and singe the hair of the dogs. The wild ox has a tongue so hard and rough that it can draw a man to him, “whom by licking he can wound to death.” The elephant, we are told on the same authority, has two tusks. “One of them it keeps always sharp to revenge injuries, and with the other it roots up trees and plants for its meat. These they lose once in ten years, which, falling off, they very carefully bury in the earth on purpose that men may not find them.” The liver of a mouse our forefathers believed to increase and decrease with the waxing and waning of the moon. “For every day of the moon’s age there is a fibre increase in their liver.” This rash and random assertion it would be manifestly impossible either to prove or disprove, though one may have one’s own strong opinion on the matter. It would be necessary to kill the mouse to count the aforesaid fibres, and having killed it, the morrow’s extra age of the moon would bring no added fibres to the victim of our credulity. Presently we come to the Potto, a creature that is probably the same as we now call the sloth. The illustration shows us a most hopelessly helpless-looking animal, and in the description that accompanies it we are told that a whole day is little enough for it to advance ten steps forward. We are also informed that when he does climb a tree he does not leave it until he has eaten up not only the fruit but all the foliage, when “he descends fat and in good case, but before he can get up another tree he loses all the advantages of his previous good quarters and often perishes of hunger.” Eighty-seven quadrupeds are dealt with, so it will be readily seen how little we have drawn upon the wealth of information the book affords.
