So too in Beaumont
and Fletcher's tragedy of _Valentinian_, a chaste matron is said to be
'cold as crystal _never to be thawed again_.'] and Pliny, backing up
one mistake by another, affirmed that it was only found in regions of
extreme cold. The fact is, that the Greek word for crystal originally
signified ice; but after a while was also imparted to that diaphanous
quartz which has so much the look of ice, and which alone _we_ call by
this name; and then in a little while it was taken for granted that the
two, having the same name, were in fact the same substance; and this
mistake it took ages to correct.
Natural history abounds in legends. In the word 'leopard' one of these
has been permanently bound up; the error, having first given birth to
the name, being afterwards itself maintained and propagated by it. The
leopard, as is well known, was not for the Greek and Latin zoologists a
species by itself, but a mongrel birth of the male panther or pard and
the lioness; and in 'leopard' or 'lion-pard' this fabled double descent
is expressed. [Footnote: This error lasted into modern times; thus
Fuller (_A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, vol. i. p. 195): 'Leopards and
mules are properly no creatures.'] 'Cockatrice' embodies a somewhat
similar fable; the fable however in this case having been invented to
account for the name. [Footnote: See Wright, _The Bible Word Book_, s.
v. [The word _cockatrice_ is a corrupt form of Late Latin _cocodrillus_,
which again is a corruption of Latin _crocodilus_, Gr.
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