Connected with these fancies is the theory that the traditional dragon of heraldry and of the Chinese is a memory handed down to the present day from immensely remote times, when--so we are asked to believe--man co-existed with the great extinct dragon-like creatures known as pterodactyles (see "Science from an Easy Chair," First Series; Methuen, 1910). As a matter of fact the heraldic dragon does not closely resemble the pterodactyle or other extinct reptiles, and is an imaginative creation of human artists based upon the realities of the great pythons of India and the little parachute lizard (8 inches long) of the same region, known to zoologists as Draco volans. The close agreement of this little lizard with European heraldic representations of the dragon is conclusive as to the origin of the details of form and appearance assigned to that legendary beast, though the great size ascribed to it and the terror associated with it is traceable to the great snakes of the Far East--"drako" being the Greek word for a serpent. And further, there is very good ground for concluding that a long interval of geologic ages separates the disappearance of the great extinct reptiles and the pterodactyles from the appearance, on this globe, of the earliest man-like apes, and no reason to suppose that the latter could have handed on any knowledge of such extinct reptiles to their descendants, even had they seen such creatures. CHAPTER XXXIX THE DIVINING-ROD THE divining-rod, spoken of by the Romans as "virgula divina," and mentioned by Cicero and by Tacitus, was a different thing altogether from the modern forked twig of the water-finder, and seems to be of immemorial antiquity. Its use in "divination" was similar to that practised with a ring or a sieve suspended by a string. When the rod is thrown into the air and falls to the ground, or when the suspended object is set moving, it eventually comes to rest, and when thus at rest must point in one particular direction. It was supposed that gods or spirits invoked at the moment guided the movement and final position of rest, so as to make the divining-rod or ring or sieve point to buried treasure, to an undetected murderer, or to a witch or wizard who had used magic arts to injure the person seeking its aid. Bits of stick are so used at the present day by some savage races. The notion leading to its use is the same as that which has led to augury by inspection of an animal's entrails, by the flight of birds, and other such varying appearances. The notion is that an unseen protective power will, when properly invoked, interfere with the blindly varying thing and make it vary so as to give indications either of hidden objects or of future events. The unseen power which thus revealed itself was primitively supposed to be that of a god or a spirit, but later the augur or intermediary who worked the "show" acquired exclusive importance and arrogated to himself mysterious powers. The same transference of