Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/464

452 likewise, is said to be as bad, in regard that it blasteth trees, killeth birds, &c. by poisoning the air. If any thing be slain by it, the same also proveth venomous to such as touch it: only a weasel kills it.

"That they be bred out of an egg laid by an old cock, is scarce credible; howbeit some affirm with great confidence, that when the cock waxeth old there groweth in him, of his corrupted seed, a little egg with a thin film instead of a shell, and this being hatched by the toad, or some such like creature, bringeth forth a venomous worm, although not this basilisk, that king of serpents." Speculum Mundi. Chap. ix. p. 486.—1635.

"Œlian, in his ',' mentions a serpent, which appearing from the mouth of a cavern, stopped the march of Alexander's army through a spacious desert. The wild beasts, serpents, and birds, which Alexander encountered in marching through India, were most extravagantly imagined by the oriental fabulists, and form the chief wonders of that monarch's romance."—.

Amongst the fabulous monsters of old romance,