The unicorn was one of the most amazing creatures in mystical natural history.

“It is a very cruel beast, with a great and thick body after the fashion of a horse; it hath for a weapon a great horn, half a fathom in length, so sharp and so hard that there is nothing it cannot pierce....  When men need to take it they bring a virgin maid to the place where they know that it has its abode.  When the unicorn sees her and knows that she is a virgin, it lieth down to sleep in her lap, doing her no harm; then come the hunters and kill it....  Likewise, if she be not a pure maid the unicorn will not sleep, but killeth the damsel who is not pure.”

Whence we conclude that the unicorn is one of the emblems of chastity, as also is another very strange beast of which Saint Isidor speaks:  the porphyrion.

This has one foot like that of the partridge, and the other webbed like that of a goose, its peculiarity consists in mourning over adultery, and loving its master so faithfully that it dies of pity in his arms when it learns that his wife has deceived him.  So that this species was soon extinct!

“There must be some more fabulous beasts to be included,” murmured Durtal, again turning over his papers.

He found the wyvern, a sort of Melusina, half woman and half serpent; a very cruel beast, full of malice and devoid of pity, Saint Ambrose tells us; the manicoris, with the face of a man, the tawny eyes and crimson mane of a lion, a scorpion’s tail, and the flight of an eagle; this sort is insatiable by human flesh.  The leoncerote, offspring of the male hyena and the lioness, having the body of an ass, the legs of a deer, the breast of a wild beast, a camel’s head, and armed with terrible fangs; the tharanda, which, according to Hugh of Saint Victor, has the shape of the ox, the profile of the stag, the fur of the bear, and which changes colour like the cameleon; finally, the sea-monk, the most puzzling of all, since Vincent of Beauvais describes it as having its body covered with scales, and it is furnished, in lieu of arms, with fins all over claws, besides having a monk’s shaven head ending in the snout of a carp.

Others were also invented, as for instance the gargoyles, hybrid monsters, signifying the vomiting forth of sin ejected from the sanctuary; reminding the passer-by who sees them pouring forth the water from the gutter, that when seen outside the church, they are the voidance of the spirit, the cloaca of the soul!

“But,” said Durtal to himself, “that seems to me enough of the matter.  From the point of view of symbolism this menagerie is not particularly interesting since these monsters—­the wyvern, the manicoris, the leoncerote, the tharanda and sea-monk—­all mean the same thing, and all embody the Spirit of Evil.”

He took out his watch.

“Come,” said he, “I have still time enough before dinner to go through the list of real animals.”