In spite of the familiarity with the appearance of the creature that the obtaining of its head and tail would suggest, the various authorities differ very widely in describing it. Some writers say that dragons are of “a yellow fierie colour, having sharp backs like saws,” and some tell us that “their scales shine like silver.” Some dragons are said to have wings and no feet, some again have both feet and wings, others have neither one nor the other, and are only distinguished from the common sort of serpents by the combs growing upon their heads. Father Pigafetta in his book declares that “Mont Atlas hath plentie of dragons, grosse of body, slow of motion, and in by ting or touching incurably venomous. In Congo is a kind of dragons like in bygnesse unto rammes with wings, having long tayles and divers jawes of teeth of blue and greene, painted like scales, with two feete, and feede on rawe fleshe.” John Leo, in his “History of Africa,” says that the dragon is the progeny of the eagle and wolf. Others affirm that it is generated by the great heat of India, or springs from the volcanoes of Ethiopia. After reading about almost every possible variation of structure that is open to a dragon, winged, serpentine, two-legged, four-legged, and the like, it is rather quaint to find that Pliny feels that there is a point after all where one must draw the line. He says that “in Ethiopia there are produced as great dragons as in India, being twenty cubits long. But I chiefly wonder at one thing: why Juba should think they were crested.” This suggestion of the crass ignorance of Juba was certainly a little hard on him, as when so very much was believed a crest was a very little extra item to credit, besides as a matter of fact dragons as such, Ethiopian or otherwise, were often described by ancient authorities as having this feature. It really seems like accepting the sheeted spectre of the country churchyard, and then growing sceptical because its hollowed turnip head was still crowned with a little of the foliage that rustic haste or indifference to the verities had failed to cut away. Aldrovandus, in his “History of Serpents and Dragons,” published in 1640, goes very thoroughly indeed into the subject.[105] The work is in folio size, and the portion devoted to the dragon extends from pages 312 to 360. It must be duly noted that Aldrovandus entirely accepts the dragon as a reality; that this is so is obvious from his dealing with it in this volume instead of placing it in his “Historia Monstrorum.” The book is written in Latin, and amongst the various sections concerning the dragon we find Differentiæ, Forma et Descriptio, Mores, Locus, Antipathia (unlike most other creatures treated by the old author, his vindictive savagely forbids the usual chapter on Sympathia), and Usus in Medicina. Fig. 19 is one of the draconic forms illustrated in the book; the varieties given are very numerous, and of widely differing nature. [Illustration: FIG. 19.]