"Nor is belief in the unicorn confined to Europe. By Chinese writers it is characterised as a 'spiritual beast.' The existence of the unicorn is firmly credited by the most intelligent natives and by not a few Europeans. A very trustworthy observer, the Abbé Huc, speaks very positively on the subject: 'The unicorn really exists in Tibet.... We had for a long time a small Mongol treatise on Natural History, for the use of children, in which a unicorn formed one of the pictorial illustrations.'" The unicorn, however, as it has heraldically developed, is drawn {222} with the body of a horse, the tail of the heraldic lion, the legs and feet of the deer, the head and mane of a horse, to which is added the long twisted horn from which the animal is named, and a beard (Figs. 414, 415, and 416). A good representation of the unicorn will be found in the figure of the Royal Arms herein, and in Fig. 417, which is as fine a piece of heraldic design as could be wished. The crest of Yonge of Colbrooke, Devonshire, is "a demi-sea-unicorn argent, armed gules, finned or," and the crest of Tynte (Kemeys-Tynte of Cefn Mably and Halswell) is "on a mount vert, a unicorn sejant argent, armed and crined or." The unicorn will be found in the arms of Styleman, quartered by Le Strange, and Swanzy. [Illustration: FIG. 418.--Gryphon segreant.] [Illustration: FIG. 419.--Gryphon passant.] [Illustration: FIG. 420.--Gryphon Statant.] _The Griffin_ or _Gryphon_.--Though in the popular mind any heraldic monster is generically termed a griffin, the griffin has, nevertheless, very marked and distinct peculiarities. It is one of the hybrid monstrosities which heraldry is so fond of, and is formed by the body, hind-legs, and tail of a lion conjoined to the head and claws of an eagle, the latter acting as its forepaws (Figs. 418-420). It has the wings of the eagle, which are never represented close, but it also has ears, and this, by the way, should be noted, because herein is the only distinction between a griffin's head and an eagle's head when the rest of the body is not represented (Fig. 421). Though but very seldom so met with, it is occasionally found proper, by which description is meant that the plumage is of the brown colour of the eagle, the rest of the body being the natural colour of the lion. The griffin is frequently found with its beak and fore-legs of a different colour from its body, {223} and is then termed "armed," though another term, "beaked and fore-legged," is almost as frequently used. A very popular idea is that the origin of the griffin was the dimidiation of two coats of arms, one having an eagle and the other a lion as charges, but taking the origin of armory to belong to about the end of the eleventh century, or thereabouts, the griffin can be found as a distinct creation, not necessarily heraldic, at a very much earlier date. An exceedingly good and an early representation of the griffin will be found in Fig. 422.