UNICORN

(Lat. unus, one; cornu, Ao»«.) The beast called unicorn, in our version of scripture (Heb. rem), is now commonly understood to be the rhinoceros. But the fabulous unicorn, which has pa ed into heraldry, is represented witli the figure of a horse, and a single horn i uing from its forehead. The unicorn of Pliny, however, has the head of a hart, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, and the rest of the body resembling a horse. Aristotle, ^Elian, and all the cla ical writers on animals, mention the unicorn. The traveller Ludovicus Roman us a erts that he saw two unicorns, kept alive in the temple of Mecca. Altogether there is perhaps no fabulous beast for whose existence there is so much appearance of evidence, and some seem to imagine that it may yet be discovered in the interior of Thibet. Many strange virtues were attributed of old to the horn of the unicorn, particularly against poison; but the horns preserved in collections, and to which that name was given, were either of the rhinoceros, or of the narwal or sea unicorn. [s. 1287]