The second will be met with in the first part of “King Henry IV.;” it will probably be very familiar to many of our readers:—

The arms of the Barrister Templars of the present day consist of the Pegasus on an azure shield. The original devices of the Templars were the Agnus Dei, a device that may still be seen carved on the Temple buildings in London, and two knights riding one behind the other on the same horse. This badge or device was originally chosen to denote the poverty of the order in its earlier days, but at a later day, when the symbol was misunderstood, these two rude figures of knights were taken for wings, and hence we get the modern device of the winged steed or Pegasus.

The Vampyre was another of the strange imaginings of our forefathers. It was thought that men and women sometimes returned, body and soul, from the other world after their death, and wandered about the earth doing all kinds of mischief to the living, one of their favourite pursuits being to suck the blood of those who were asleep, and these became vampyres in turn. The superstition took deepest hold in Eastern Europe, and is still an article of firm faith in Hungary and Servia. One reads ghastly stories of men unconsciously entertaining and sheltering vampyres and perishing miserably, of lonely travellers pining suddenly away, of the bodies of the dead being disinterred and the corpse found with the tell-tale stains of blood around its mouth, and the like; and we can easily see how such beliefs as this, or the wehr-wolf or loup-garou of the Germans and French, or the ghoul of the Arabs and Persians, would have a terrible effect on the minds of the superstitious. The vampyre was a terror of the night, since the corpse then, after lying in the stillness of the grave throughout the day, awoke to a fearful vitality. The forms it assumed were not always human, but were believed to be at times those of the dog, frog, toad, cat, flea, spider, and many other innocent creatures. Hence the contemptuous expression one sometimes hears used to deride a needless anxiety, “a mere flea-bite,” could have had no counterpart in mediæval days, for the anxiety such a misadventure might create would be of the most alarming and harassing description. In old books one finds the most circumstantial details as to how to detect when one has been bitten, or to prevent further mischief. To this end the grave of the suspected vampyre was opened during daylight when his powers of evil were quiescent, the corpse was decapitated and the head buried elsewhere, a stake was driven through the body, and many other elaborate and horrible precautions were taken to prevent a recurrence of the nightly resurrection. On the whole, we may well congratulate ourselves that we do not live in “the good old times.” Even now in country districts and amongst the uneducated one comes across such striking instances of superstitious belief and thraldom as suffice to enable us to faintly realise what it must have been when all alike were enwrapped in a dreadful bondage to unseen powers of evil far more intense than is now possible even to the few.

The vampyre bat, a native of South America, is so called from its blood-sucking propensities. It is the legend of the vampyre that has given the name to the bat, not the habits of the bat that originated the fable of the vampyre, for at the time that these legends of the destroyer were articles of faith in Europe, the American animal was quite unknown. The natural tendency towards exaggeration surrounded the vampyre bat with a mysterious horror, and having once gained its name of ill-omen, it became easy to rear upon it a superstructure of morbid fancy. The researches on the spot of Waterton, Darwin, and other reliable authorities show that the name is not altogether ill bestowed, as both Europeans and natives suffer severely from its attacks during the night, and the horses and cattle that are out in the pastures frequently return in the morning with their flanks covered with blood.

Though the Chameleon, unlike the phœnix, the griffin, or the basilisk, is a living verity, so large a body of fable has grown up around it that the animal is almost as mythical as those creatures of the imagination. The name is derived from two Greek words signifying “ground-lion,” a name singularly inappropriate in every way, as it has nothing leonine in look or nature, while its organisation fits it especially for living on trees. When we consider the singularity of its appearance and the peculiarity of its habits, it is by no means surprising that it should have attracted attention; and when we recall the numerous erroneous beliefs current amongst our rustics in England in this nineteenth century in the matter of frogs, newts, slow-worms, and the like, we can hardly wonder at the superstitions that have surrounded it. The eyes of the creature are quite expressionless, and are worked perfectly independently of each other, so that one may be directed upwards and the other downwards at the same time, or turned simultaneously to front and rear. Its exceeding slowness of movement is another curious feature, and though this exposes them to easy capture when seen, for “un Caméléon aperçu est un Caméléon perdu,” it has its advantages in another direction, for a creature that takes some hours to advance a yard or so will certainly not attract attention by any sudden movement; and the assimilation in colour of its skin with the surrounding foliage is another great protection. The creature has a singular habit of puffing out its body until it is nearly as large again, and in this state it will sometimes remain for hours. The best known fact, however, is its capacity for changing colour, passing from green to violet, blue, or yellow; but this power of varying the tint has been greatly exaggerated. We have been told that if the creature be placed on any colour, as bright scarlet, it will assume that colour; but this is one of those fragments of unnatural history that will not bear putting to the test. The following lines of Prior convey aptly enough this popular but erroneous notion:—

Aristotle was acquainted with the singular motions of the eyes of the creature, and his description may well have been taken from nature. At the same time, these old writers knew nothing of comparative anatomy or dissection and conducted no scientific post-mortem examinations; hence in all matters of internal structure they are often ludicrously in error, while the weakness of their statements is only perhaps equalled by the strength with which they are asserted. We are, therefore, not surprised to read in Aristotle that the chameleon has no blood except in its head. Pliny re-states all the errors made by Aristotle, and further adds that it lives without either eating or drinking, deriving its nourishment wholly from the air, and that, though ordinarily harmless, it becomes terrible during the greatest summer heats. Even Pliny, however, could not believe everything that was told him, though his powers of imbibing outrageous notions were of the keenest, and whenever any old writers deal with something more than usually incredible they fortify their statement and evade personal responsibility by adding “as Plinie saith.” Pliny, then, rejects the still older idea that its right leg artfully cooked with certain herbs conveys the power of invisibility on the eater, and will not believe that the thigh of its left leg boiled in sow’s milk will induce gout in any one so injudicious as to bathe their feet in this peculiar broth. Neither will he credit that a man may be made to incur the hatred of all his fellow-citizens by having his gate-posts anointed with another nasty preparation of chameleon. As a set-off to all this very unusual incredulity he hastens to adopt the statement of another wise man, Democritus, that it has the power of attracting to the earth birds of prey, so that they in turn become the prey of other animals—a most unselfish proceeding on the part of the creature, as its own food consists of flies and such like small matters. Democritus also asserts, and Pliny confirms him in the assertion, that if the head and neck of the chameleon be burned on oak charcoal it will cause thunder and heavy rain. One is lost in astonishment at the fertility of the imagination in these old naturalists; and though it is now easy when one has once been put on the track of discovery to surmise that the tail of a chameleon burnt on walnut charcoal might produce snow or possibly fog, much of the credit of the discovery should go to the man who first gave the clue to these physiologico-meteorological influences. Aldrovandus, another man of science gifted with a strong imagination and the power of assimilating the fancies of others, informs us that if a viper passes beneath a tree in the branches of which a chameleon is resting, the latter will eject from its mouth a poisonous secretion that effectually rids the world of the equally venomous snake; and he further adds that elephants sometimes unknowingly eat a chameleon in the midst of the foliage on which they are browsing, a mishap that is rapidly fatal to them unless they can at once have recourse to the wild olive-tree as a remedy and antidote.

Many other strange beasts might engage our attention were it not that we have much new ground yet to explore, for not only might we discourse of the strange beliefs that have clustered round these monsters, but of the equally strange fancies that have been associated with such familiar creatures as cats and dogs, hares and spiders, goats and mice, while in another section we must dwell on the equally unnatural fancies that have been associated with various plants. Before, however, passing to these we must refer to those strange imaginings, such as the troglodytes, centaurs, and pigmies, that owe more or less to the combination of the human with other forms—a large class that deserves a measure of attention that may well suggest the advisability of opening a new chapter for its benefit.