One of the greatest enemies of the lion would appear to be the unicorn; for though the two appear to get on amicably enough as supporters of the royal arms, appearances, it is well known, are often deceptive, and they are really deadly foes. Gesner, in his “History of Animals,” gives the whole story in a nutshell, for he tells us that “the Unicorn and the Lion being enemies by nature, as soon as the lion sees the unicorn he betakes himself to a tree.” This strikes one as being a rather feeble performance on the part of the king of beasts—in fact, decidedly _infra dig._; but the end is considered to justify the means, for “the unicorn in his fury, and with all the swiftness of his course, running at him, sticks his horn fast in the tree, and then the lion falls upon him and kills him.” The indiscreet valour of the unicorn seems distinctly a nobler thing than the calculating craft of the lion. Spenser, in the “Faerie Queene,” introduces the story as evidently a well-known fact in natural history:— “Like as a Lyon whose imperial powre A proud rebellious unicorn defyes, T’avoid the rash assault and wrathful stowre Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applyes, And when him ronning in full course he spyes He slips aside: the whiles that furious beast His precious horne, sought of his enemyes[39] Strikes in the stocke, ne thence can be releast, But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast.”[40] In “Timon of Athens” Shakespeare writes: “Wert thou the Unicorn pride and wrath would confound thee, and make thine own self the conquest of thy fury;” and in “Julius Cæsar” we find the line: “Unicorns may be betray’d with trees,” both passages evidently referring to this legend. Most furious of all beasts was the Monoceros; or, as Ælian calls it, the Cartazonos, a creature still having literary and heraldic existence as the unicorn; though in some few points the beast, as described by Pliny and others, does not altogether resemble in form the creature of the heralds that is so well known to us as joint supporter with the lion of our national arms. The ancient monoceros had the body of a horse, the head of a stag, the feet of an elephant, and the tail of a boar, and from the middle of his forehead projected a single horn. The Monoceros, Unicornu, or Einhorn is described in Jonston’s “Historia Naturalis,” published in 1657, and Munster, in his description of Asia,[41] gives a picture of the unicorn, a beast in all respects like a horse, save that it has one tremendous horn. Barrow, in his “Travels in Southern Africa,” gives the figure of a head of a unicorn which he saw drawn on the side of a cavern, and appears to entertain no doubt that such an animal exists, while Burton tells us that in Æthiopia “some Kine there are which have Horns like Stags, others but one Horn only, and that in the Forehead, about a foot and a half long, but bending backwards,” a departure this from the recognized type.