In the eighth book of Pliny’s “Natural History,” the second theory is maintained. “It is said that all four-footed beasts are wonderfully delighted and enticed by the smell of panthers; but their hideous looke and crabbed countenance, which they bewray so soone as they show their heads, skareth them as much againe; and therefore their manner is to hide their heads, and when they have trained other beasts within their reach by their sweet savour, they flee upon them and worrie them.”[47] In a MS. presented by Sir William Segar to King James I. and now No. 6085 in the Harleian collection, we come across a combination of the theories, the result being a fascination of the most killing description:—“The panther is admired of all beasts for the beauty of his skyn, being spotted with variable colours, and beloued and followed of them for the sweetnesse of his breath, that streameth forth of his nostrils and ears like smoke, which our paynters mistaking corruptlie, doe make fire.” This detail is given in the manuscript in explanation of one of the badges of King Henry VI.—a panther passant guardant argent, spotted of all colours, with vapour issuant from his mouth and ears.[48] Sir John Maundevile professed to see in the capital of far Cathay a palace with its halls “covered with red skins of animals called panthers, fair beasts and well-smelling; so that for the sweet odour of the skins no evil air may enter into the palace. The skins are as red as blood and shine so bright against the sun that a man may scarce look at them. And many people worship the beasts when they meet them first in a morning, for their great virtue and for the good smell that they have; and the skins they value more than if they were plates of fine gold.” This is very clearly not a statement springing from personal observation. Some old writers of imaginative turn of mind regarded the panther as the emblem of providence and foresight, the number of eye-like spots on his coat suggesting the idea that he was well able to look before, behind, and around him; while others declared that he bore on his shoulder one particular spot of the shape of the moon, and that this passed through the various phases of form from crescent to full circle simultaneously with the moon itself.