The effigy of the dragon survives to the present day in the figure over which St. George triumphs, on the reverse of the British sovereign. In the luxuriant imaginations of ancient Eastern peoples, dating back to prehistoric ages, perhaps 5000 B.C., the dragons present an astonishing constancy of form. In after-times they underwent a curious evolution, as the conception of Babylon and Egypt is traced through Assyria to Greece. The Wings, which had been associated at first with the fore limb of the typical dragon, become characteristic of the Lion, and of the poet's winged Horse, and finally of the Human figure itself, carved on the great columns of the Greek temples of Ephesus. These flying animals are historically descendants of the same common stock with the dragons of China and Japan, which still preserve the aspect of reptiles. Their interest is chiefly in evidence of a latent spirit of evolution in days too remote for its meaning to be now understood, which has carried the winged forms higher and ever higher in grade of organisation, till their wings ceased to be associated with feelings of terror. The Hebrew cherubim are regarded by H. E. Ryle, Bishop of Exeter, as probably Dragons, and the figure of the conventional angel is the human form of the Dragon. [Illustration: FIG. 4. FIGURE FROM THE TEMPLE OF EPHESUS] ORGANS OF FLIGHT Turning from this reference to the realm of mythology to existing nature, the power of flight is popularly associated with all the chief types of vertebrate animals--fishes, frogs, lizards, birds, and mammals. Many of the animals ill deserve the name of flyers, and most are exceptions to different conditions of existence which control their kindred, but it is convenient to examine for a little the nature of the structures by which this movement in the air, which is not always flight, is made possible. Certain fishes, like the lung-fish Ceratodus, of Queensland, and the mud-fish Lepidosiren, are capable of leaving the water and living on land, and for a time breathe air. But neither these fishes nor Periophthalmus, which runs with rapid movement of its fins and carries the body more or less out of water, or the climbing perch, Anabas, carried out of water over the country by Indian jugglers, ever put on the slightest approach to wings. FLYING FISHES [Illustration: FIG. 5. THE FLYING FISH EXOCOETUS With the fins extended moving through the air]