Some consider it an evolution of the fancy, typifying noxious principles; thus, Chambers[142] says, "The dragon appears in the mythical history and legendary poetry of almost every nation as the emblem of the destructive and anarchical principle; ... as misdirected physical force and untamable animal passions.... The dragon proceeds openly to work, running on its feet with expanded wings, and head and tail erect, violently and ruthlessly outraging decency and propriety, spouting fire and fury both from mouth and tail, and wasting and devastating the whole land." The point which strikes me as most interesting in this passage is the reference to the legendary theory of the mode of the dragon's progress, which curiously calls to mind the semi-erect attitude of the existing small Australian frilled lizard (_Chlamydosaurus_). This attitude is also ascribed to some of the extinct American Dinosaurs, such as the Stegosaurus. No one, so far as I am aware, in late days has hitherto ventured to uphold the claims of this terrible monster to be accepted as a real contemporary of primitive man,[143] which may even have been co-existent with him to a comparatively recent date, and but lately passed away into the cohort of extinct species, leaving behind it only the traditions of its ferocity and terrors, to stamp their impression on the tongues of all countries. No one has endeavoured to collate the vast bulk of materials shrouded in the stories of all lands. If this were perfectly effected, a diagnosis of the real nature of the dragon might perhaps be made, and the chapter of its characteristics, alliances, and habits completed like that of any other well-established species. The following sketch purposes only to initiate the task here propounded, the author's access to materials being limited, and only sufficient to enable him, as he thinks, to establish generally the proposition which it involves, to grasp as it were some of the broader and salient features of the investigation, while leaving a rich gleaning of corroborative information for the hand of any other who may please to continue and extend his observations. At the outset it will be necessary to assign a much more extended signification to the word dragon than that which is contained in the definition at the head of this chapter. The popular mind of the present day doubtless associates it always with the idea of a creature possessing wings; but the _Lung_ of the Chinese, the δράκων of the Greeks, the _Draco_ of the Romans, the Egyptian dragon, and the _Nâga_ of the Sanscrit have no such limited signification, and appear to have been sometimes applied to any serpent, lacertian, or saurian, of extraordinary dimensions, nor is it always easy to determine from the passages in which these several terms occur what kind of monster is specially indicated.