“Likë as the lyon, whose imperial poure
A proud rebellious unicorn defyes,
T’avoide the rash assault, and wrathful stoure
Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applyes,
And when him rouning in full course he spyes,
He slips aside: the whiles that furious beast,
His precious horne, sought of his enimyes,
Strikes in the stroke, ne thence can be released,
But to the victor yields a bounteous feast.”
Pliny makes no mention of the Unicorn as we have it heraldically represented, but speaks of the Indian Ass, which, he says, is only a one-horned animal. Other old naturalists, with the exception of Ælian, do not mention it as our Unicorn—and his description of it hardly coincides. He says that the Brahmins tell of the wonderful beasts in the inaccessible regions of the interior of India, among them being the Unicorn, “which they call Cartazonon, and say that it reaches