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Vegetable Lambs were another of the wonders of our forefathers. The credulous Sir John Mandeville says that in Cathay a gourd-like fruit isl found that when ripe contains "as though it were a 13ptylle lomb withouten wolle." In the twenty-sixth chapter of his book the lamb-tree is duly figured, and its peculiar fruit development graphically delineated. In many old books of natural history we find representations of some such creature under the names of the Scythian or Tartarian lamb. According to some old writers it was said to be purely an animal, and although rooted to the ground, was held to have so deadly an effect on vegetation in its neighbourhood that it effectually prevented the growth of all herbage within the scope of its baleful influence. So singular a creature naturally provoked attention and curiosity, and in the earlier days of the Royal Society the matter was considered quite worthy of their notice.
Naturally, also, the supply endeavoured to keep pace * with the demand, and as the belief in mermaids led to their fabrication and exhibition, so also the myth of the Scythian lamb took visible shape. One of these impositions was formerly preserved in the British Museum, not from any belief in it, of course, but as an illustration of the old belief.* The reference to the mermaid reminds us that the sea no less than the land bore in ancient and medixval days its full share of wonders. Of the mermaids we shall have occasion to say more presently, as we propose to class together all those fqrms that are more or less human, and to deal with them Separately; but the sculptures of classic antiquity or the 1 fancies of the medimval herald afford us illustrations of the sea-horse, the sea-lion, and many other quaint imaginings. |