585.

The Da Vinci Notebooks at sacred-texts.com

585.

HOW YOU SHOULD MAKE AN IMAGINARY ANIMAL LOOK NATURAL.

!mOf representing imaginary animals. You know that you cannot invent animals without limbs, each of which, in itself, must resemble those of some other animal. Hence if you wish to make an animal, imagined by you, appear natural--let us say a Dragon, take for its head that of a mastiff or hound, with

p. 293

the eyes of a cat, the ears of a porcupine, the nose of a greyhound, the brow of a lion, the

temples of an old cock, the neck of a water tortoise.

 ²⁷²

Footnotes

293:272 : The sketch here inserted of two men on horseback fighting a dragon is the facsimile of a pen and ink drawing belonging to BARON EDMOND DE ROTHSCHILD of Paris.