[2] Since the above was written, I have seen the account by an American physician—in a recently issued volume of Osler’s _Treatise on Medicine_—of his recent discovery of the grass which produces in its pollen the poison of hay fever, and of the preparation by him of an anti-toxin which appears to give relief to those who suffer from hay fever. XIII THE DRAGON: A FANCY OR A FACT I am about to write of loathly dragons, “gorgons and hydras and chimæras dire.” Every one knows what a dragon looks like, though probably most people could not give a minute description of the beast. A number of quite distinct creatures, some living on land, some in sea, are spoken of in the Bible by a word which is translated as “dragon.” The ancient Welsh chieftains, like many fighting princes of old days, bore a “dragon” on their banners, and were themselves called “dragons” (Pen-dragon), and when a knight slew such a chieftain fabulous stories grew up as to his combat with and slaughter of a “dragon.” The complete, legitimate dragon of the present day is the dragon of heraldry, which is maintained in proper form and with authorised attributes by the Heralds’ College. I have a drawing of this “official” beast before me (Fig. 16). He is represented as of large size, but whether theoretically the heralds of to-day consider him to be as large as a lion or ten times as long and tall I do not know. His body is lizard-like, and covered with scales resembling those of some lizards (unlike a crocodile in this respect). His head is not unlike that of a crocodile, excepting that he has a short, sharp horn on his nose, and a beard on his chin, and also a pair of large pointed ears which no living reptile possesses. His mouth is open, showing teeth like those of a crocodile, and from it issues a remarkable tongue, terminating in an arrow-head-shaped weapon (presumably a “sting”) unlike anything known in any living animal. His tail is very long and snake-like (an important fact when we come to consider his ancestry), and is thrown into coils. It terminates in an arrow-head-shaped structure like that of the tongue, quite unlike anything known in any real animal. He has four powerful limbs, which are not like those of a lizard or a crocodile. They resemble those of an eagle, and have grasping toes and claws, three directed forward and one backward. In addition, he has a pair of wings, which are leathery, and supported by several parallel bars, a structure which gives the wings a remote resemblance to those of a bat. The wing is quite unlike that of a pterodactyle (the great extinct flying lizard), and has no resemblance whatever to that of a bird, which is, of course, formed by separate quill feathers set in a row on the bones of the fore-arm and hand. The wings are always represented (even in illegitimate and Oriental dragons) as much too small to carry the dragon in flight. The dragon has, further, a crest of separate triangular