heraldry recognises some other terrible beasts allied to the dragon; in fact, what zoologists would call "allied species." The griffin, for instance (Fig. 17), is a four-legged beast like the dragon, but has the beak and wings and forefeet of an eagle, and the hind-legs and tail of a lion. The heraldic hydra is a dragon, such as I have above described, but with seven heads and necks. The ancient Greek representation of the hydra destroyed by Hercules (as painted on vases) was, on the contrary, based upon the octopus, or eight-armed cuttle-fish, each arm carrying a snake-like head (Fig. 18). The wyvern is an important variety of the dragon tribe, well known to heralds, but not to be seen every day. It so far conforms to natural laws that it has only two legs, the fore-limbs being the wings (Fig. 19). The true dragon and the FIG. 17. The heraldic griffin. It alone of the dragon-like monsters has feathery wings. griffin, like the angel of ecclesiastical art, have actually six limbs-namely, a pair of forelegs or arms, a pair of hindlegs, and, in addition, a pair of wings. Occasionally an artist (even in ancient Egyptian works of art) has attempted to avoid this redundance of limbs by representing an angel as having the arms themselves provided with an expanse of quill feathers. This is certainly a less extraordinary outgrowth of wings (which in birds bats, and pterodactyles FIG. 18.-Hercules destroying the hydra (copied from an ancient Greek vase). arrangement than the actually are the modified arms or fore-limbs), as an extra pair of limbs rooted in the back. The wyvern and the cockatrice and the basilisk (Fig. 20) (which, like the Gorgon Medusa, can strike a man dead by the mere glance of the eye) are remarkable for conforming to the invariable vertebrate standard of no more than two pairs of limbs, whether legs, wings, or fins. The name "lind-worm" is given to a wyvern without wings (hence the Linton Worm and the FIG. 20.-The heraldic basilisk, also called the Amphysian Cockatrice. Observe the second head at the end of its tail-a feature due to perversion of the obser vation that there are some snake-like crea FIG. 19.-The heraldic wyvern. Laidley Worm of Lambton), and appears in various heraldic devices and in legendary art; whilst in the arms of the Visconti of Milan we climb down to a quite simple serpent-like creature without legs or wings, known as the "guivre." Without looking further into the strange and fantastic catalogue of imaginary monsters, one must recognise that it is a matter of great interest to trace the origin of these marvellous creations of human fancy, and the way in which they have first of all been brought into pictorial existence, and then variously modified and finally stereotyped and maintained by tradition and art. It has not infrequently been suggested, since geologists made us acquainted with the bones of huge and strange-looking fossil reptiles dug from ancient rocks, that the tradi tures (Amphisbena) with so simple a head that it is at first sight difficult to say which end of the creature is the head and which is the tail. tion of "the dragon" is really a survival of the actual knowledge and experience of these extinct monsters on the part of "long-ago races of men." It is a curious fact, mentioned by a well-known writer, Mrs. Jameson, that the bones of a great fossil reptile were preserved and exhibited at Aix in France as the bones of the dragon slain by St. Michael, just as the bones of a whale are shown as those of the mythical Dun-cow of Warwick in that city. There are three very good reasons for not entertaining the suggestion that the tradition of the dragon and similar beasts is due to human co-existence with the great reptiles of the past. The first is that the age of the rocks known as cretaceous and jurassic (or oölitic), in which are found the more or less complete skeletons of the great saurians—many bigger in the body than elephants, and with huge tails in addition, iguanodon, megalosaurus, diplodocus, as well as the winged pterodactyles (see Plate II., where a representation is given of what we know as to the form and bearing of two species of pterodactyle) and a vast series of such creatures-is so enormously remote that not only man but all the hairy warm-blooded animals like him, did not come into existence until many millions of years after these rocks had been deposited by water and the great reptiles buried in them had become extinct. The cave-men of the Pleistocene period are modern, even close to us, as compared with the age when the great saurians flourished. That was just before the time when our chalk-cliffs were being formed as a slowly growing sediment on the floor of a deep sea. No accurate measure of the time which has elapsed since then is possible, but we find that about 200 ft. thickness of deposit has been accumulated since the date of the earliest human remains known to us-whilst over 5000 ft. have accumulated since the REAL DRAGONS THE EXTINCT FLYING REPTILES KNOWN AS PTERODACTYLES. THEIR BONES AND WING MEMBRANES ARE |