Next to this monster comes the gryphon, a combination of the quadruped and the bird, for it has the body of the lion and the head and talons of the eagle. Then the basilisk, regarded as the king of serpents; it is four feet long, and has a tail as thick as a tree, and spotted with white. Its head bears a tuft in shape like a crown; it has a strident voice, and its eye is murderous, "A look," says the "Romance of Alexander," "so piercing, that it is pestilential and deadly to all beasts, whether venomous or no." Its breath is no less fetid, nor less dangerous, for, "by its breath are all things infected, and when it is dying it is fain to disgorge it; it stinks so that all other beasts flee from it." Its most formidable foe is the weasel, which bites its throat, "though it be a beast no bigger than a rat," for "God hath made nothing without reason and remedy," the pious Mediaeval writer concludes. Why the weasel? There is nothing to show; nor was this little creature, who did such good service, honoured by our forefathers as having a favourable meaning. It is symbolical of dissimulation and depravity, and taken to typify the degrading life of the mountebank. It may also be remembered that this carnivorous beast, which was supposed to carry its young in the mouth and give birth to them through the ear, is numbered among the unclean animals in the Bible. "This zoological homoeopathy is rather inconsistent," observed Durtal, "unless the similar interpretation given to these two creatures, hating each other, may signify that the Devil devours himself." Next we have the phoenix, "a bird of very fine plumage resembling the peacock; it is very solitary, and feeds on the seeds of the ash;" its colour, moreover, is of purple overshot with gold; and because it is said to rise again from its ashes, it is always typical of the Resurrection of Christ. The unicorn was one of the most amazing creatures in mystical natural history. "It is a very cruel beast, with a great and thick body after the fashion of a horse; it hath for a weapon a great horn, half a fathom in length, so sharp and so hard that there is nothing it cannot pierce.... When men need to take it they bring a virgin maid to the place where they know that it has its abode. When the unicorn sees her and knows that she is a virgin, it lieth down to sleep in her lap, doing her no harm; then come the hunters and kill it.... Likewise, if she be not a pure maid the unicorn will not sleep, but killeth the damsel who is not pure." Whence we conclude that the unicorn is one of the emblems of chastity, as also is another very strange beast of which Saint Isidor speaks: the porphyrion. This has one foot like that of the partridge, and the other webbed like that of a goose, its peculiarity consists in mourning over adultery, and loving its master so faithfully that it dies of pity in his arms when it learns that his wife has deceived him. So that this species was soon extinct!