In mediæval, as well as in earlier times, marvellous beasts were brought into imaginary existence by the somewhat unscrupulous enterprise of an artist in giving pictorial expression to the actual words by which some traveller described a strange beast seen by him in a foreign land. Thus the “unicorn,” which was really the rhinoceros, was seen by travellers in the earliest times, and was described as an animal like a horse, but with a single horn growing from its forehead. The heraldic draughtsman accordingly takes the spirally twisted narwhal’s tusk, brought from the northern seas by adventurous mariners (the narwhal being called “the unicorn fish”) as his unicorn’s horn, and plants it on the forehead of a horse, and says, “Behold! the unicorn.” Meanwhile the real “unicorn,” the rhinoceros, became properly known as navigation and Eastern travel extended, and true unicorns’ horns, the horns of the rhinoceros, richly carved and made into drinking cups, not at all like the narwhal’s tusk, were brought to Europe from India. One was sent to Charles II. by “the Great Sophy,” and handed over to the Royal Society by the King for experiment. These horns were asserted to be the most powerful antidote or destroyer of poison, and a test for the presence of poison in drink. There was no truth whatever in the assertion, as the Royal Society at once showed. Yet they were valued at enormous prices, and pieces were sold for their weight in gold. A German traveller in the time of Queen Elizabeth saw one which was kept among the Queen’s jewels at Windsor, and was valued, according to this writer, at £10,000. Credulity, fancy, and hasty judgment are accountable for the belief in mythical and legendary monsters. Yet they have great interest for the scientific study of the growth of human thought and of the relationships of the races of mankind. They are often presented to us in beautiful stories, carvings, or pictures, having a childlike sincerity and a concealed symbolism which give to the wondrous creatures charm and human value. XIV OYSTERS