Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active. - Leonardo da Vinci

Darkness is absence of light. Shadow is diminution of light.

Up Lake Como towards Germany is the Chavenna Valley where the River Mera enters the lake. Here are barren and very high mountains with large rocks ... In these mountains the water birds called maragon. Here are born firs, larches and pines, fallow deer, ibexes, chamois and terrible bears. It cannot be mounted except by walking on all fours. There go the mountain men in snowy weather with great ingenuity to bring the bears down the mountains. These narrow mountains have the river in between. They are left and right for a space of 20 miles all like this.

If you wish to make an imaginary animal invented by you appear natural, let us say a dragon, take for the head that of a mastiff or hound, for the eyes a cat, and for the ears a porcupine, and for the nose a greyhound, and the brows of a lion, the temple of an old cock, the neck of a terrapin