Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/829

Rh chimæras, and dragons. St. Michael the archangel, with the wings of a bird, lies low and slays the fallen angel Lucifer, having bats' wings. Dragons have also had their contests with saints. St. George defeated a monstrous dragon; other holy personages followed his example, and the times became very hard for gargoyles, tarasques, and guivres. Many of the dragons were



slain, and an old monkish chronicle tells how the skin of one of them was hung from an arch in a church. The historians and wise men of antiquity did not forget to describe these monsters. Pliny speaks of a precious stone, called dracontias, which could only be found in the head of a dragon. St. Augustine informs us that "the dragon often rests in his den; but whenever he feels the moisture of the air he is able to rise on his wings and fly with great impetuosity." Other authors exhibit dragons ejecting fire and smoke from their burning throats, and enveloping in flames the audacious enemy who ventures to attack them. Such fables found credence as late as the sixteenth century. Even the grave Gessner believed in the existence of these creatures, and has said: "Numerous dragons are found in Ethiopia, a fact to be attributed to the heat that prevails in that country. They are also to be found in India and Libya, where they reach a length of fifteen feet, and the thickness of the trunk of a tree; but they are generally larger in India than in any other country. Two kinds of dragons are known: those that live in the mountainous country are large, alert, and swift, and have a crest, while those that live in marshy regions are sluggish and idle. The former have wings, and the latter have not; some have feet, and can get rapidly over the ground. Their vision is sharp, their hearing delicate. They rarely sleep, and for that reason the poets have made them guardians of treasures that man can not get. Near their abodes the air is noisome with their breath, and rings with their hissings."