“There was never any mythological fauna in the Sacred Books.  The Hebrew text was misread by those who translated it into Greek and Latin, and the strange zoology that we find in certain chapters of Isaiah and Job is easily reduced to the nomenclature of well-known creatures.

“Thus the onocentaurs and sirens, spoken of by the Prophet, are neither more nor less than jackals, if we examine the Hebrew original.  The lamia, a vampire, half woman and half serpent like the wyvern, is a night bird, the white or the screech owl; the satyrs and fauns, the hairy beasts spoken of in the Vulgate, are, after all, no more than wild goats—­’schirim,’ as they are called in the Mosaic original.

“The reptile so frequently mentioned in the Bible under the name of ‘dragon’ is indicated in the original by various words, which sometimes mean the serpent or the crocodile, sometimes the jackal, and sometimes the whale; and the famous unicorn of the Scriptures is merely the primaeval bull or auroch, which is to be seen on the Assyrian bas-reliefs—­a race now dying out, lingering only in the remotest parts of Lithuania and the Caucasus.”

“And Behemoth and Leviathan, spoken of by Job?”

“The word Behemoth is a plural form in Hebrew meaning Excellence.  It designates a prodigious and enormous beast—­the rhinoceros, perhaps, or the hippopotamus.  As to Leviathan, it was a huge reptile, a gigantic python.”

“That is a pity,” said Durtal.  “Imaginary zoology was far more amusing!—­Why, what is this vegetable?” he inquired, as he tasted a curious stew of greens.

“Dandelions cut up and boiled with shreds of bacon,” replied Madame Bavoil.  “Do you like the dish, our friend?”

“Indeed I do.  Your dandelions are to garden spinach and chicory what the wild duck is to the tame, or the hare to the rabbit.  And it is a fact that garden plants are generally poor and tasteless, while those that grow wild have a certain astringency and pleasant bitter flavour.  It is the venison of vegetables that you have given us, Madame Bavoil!”

“I fancy,” said the Abbe Plomb, who had been thoughtful, “that just as we tried to compile a mystic flora the other day, we might make a list of the deadly sins as represented by animals.”

“Obviously, and with very little trouble.  Pride is embodied in the bull, the peacock, the lion, the eagle, the horse, the swan, and the wild ass—­according to Vincent de Beauvais.  Avarice by the wolf, and, says Saint Theobald, by the spider; for lust, we have the he-goat, the boar, the toad, the ass, and the fly, which, Saint Gregory the Great tells, typifies the turbulent cravings of the senses; for envy, the sparrow-hawk, the owl, and screech-owl; for greediness, the hog and the dog; for anger, the lion and wild boar, and, according to Adamantius, the leopard; for sloth, the vulture, the snail, the she-ass, and, Raban Maur says, the mule.