head, of an eagle, falcon, or hawk,
and the forelimbs and sometimes the head of a lion. An association of
anatomical features of so unnatural and arbitrary a nature can only mean
that all dragons are the progeny of the same ultimate ancestors.

[Illustration: Fig. 7.--A Mediaeval Picture of a Chinese Dragon upon its
cloud (After the late Professor W. Anderson)]

[Illustration: Fig. 8.--A Chinese Dragon (After de Groot)]

[Illustration: Fig. 9.--Dragon from the Ishtar Gate of Babylon]

[Illustration: Fig. 10.--Babylonian Weather God]

But it is not merely a case of structural or anatomical similarity, but
also of physiological identity, that clinches the proof of the
derivation of this fantastic brood from the same parents. Wherever the
dragon is found, it displays a special partiality for water. It controls
the rivers or seas, dwells in pools or wells, or in the clouds on the
tops of mountains, regulates the tides, the flow of streams, or the
rainfall, and is associated with thunder and lightning. Its home is a
mansion at the bottom of the sea, where it guards vast treasures,
usually pearls, but also gold and precious stones. In other instances
the dwelling is upon the top of a high mountain; and the dragon's breath
forms the rain-clouds. It emits thunder and lightning. Eating the
dragon's heart enables the diner to acquire the knowledge stored in this
"organ of the mind" so that he can understand the language of birds,
and in fact of all the creatures that have contributed to the making
of a dragon.

It should not be necessary to rebut the numerous attempts that have been
made to explain the dragon-myth as a story relating to extinct monsters.
Such fantastic claims can be made only by writers devoid of any
knowledge of palaeontology or of the distinctive features of the dragon
and its history. But when the Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian
Antiquities in the British Museum, in a book that is not intended to be
humorous,[135] seriously claims Dr. Andrews' discovery of a gigantic
fossil snake as "proof" of the former existence of "the great
serpent-devil Apep," it is time to protest.

Those who attempt to derive the dragon from such living creatures as
lizards like _Draco volans_ or _Moloch horridus_[136] ignore the
evidence of the composite and unnatural features of the monsters.

"Whatever be the origin of the Northern dragon, the myths, when they
first became articulate for us, show him to be in all essentia