His Majesty's Dragon

Selected extracts from Observations on the Order Draconia in Europe, with Notes on the Oriental Breeds By Sir Edward Howe, F.R.S.

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET

1796

INCREDULITY IS THE likely response of most of my readers to the figures which appear hereinafter to describe the weight of various dragon breeds, as being wholly disproportionate to those which have hitherto been reported. The estimate of 10 tonnes for a full-grown Regal Copper is commonly known, and such prodigious bulk must already strain the imagination; what then must the reader think, when I report this a vast understatement and claim a figure closer to 30 tonnes, indeed reaching so high as 50 for the largest of this breed?

For explanation I must direct the reader to the recent work of M. Cuvier. In his latest anatomical studies of the air-sacs which enable draconic flight, M. Cuvier has drawn in turn upon the work of Mr. Cavendish and his successful isolation of those peculiar gases, lighter than the general composition of the air, which fill the sacs, and has correspondingly proposed a new system of measurement, which by compensating for the weight displaced by the air-sacs provides a better degree of comparison between the weight of dragons and that of other large land animals, lacking in these organs.

Those who have never seen a dragon in the flesh, and most particularly never one of the very largest breeds, in whom this discrepancy shall appear the most pronounced, may be sceptical; those who have had the opportunity, as I have, of seeing a Regal Copper side by side with the very largest of the Indian elephants, who have been measured at some 6 tonnes themselves, will I hope join me in greatly preferring a scheme of measurement which does not ridiculously suggest that the one, who could devour the other nearly in a bite, should weigh less than twice as much.

SIR EDWARD HOWE

December 1795

Breeds native to the British Isles—Common breeds—Relation to Continental breeds—The effect of modern diet upon size—Heredity of Regal Copper—Venomous and Vitriolic breeds.

. . . IT IS AS well to recollect that Yellow Reapers, so often unjustly regarded with that contempt engendered by familiarity, are to be found everywhere because of their many excellent qualities: generally hardy and not fastidious in their diet, untroubled by all but the worst extremes of heat or cold, almost invariably good-humoured in character, they have contributed to almost every bloodline in these Isles. These dragons fall squarely into the middle-weight range, though they range more widely within the breed than most, from a weight of some 10 tonnes to as many as 17, in a recent large specimen. Ordinarily they fall between 12 and 15 tonnes, with a length generally of 50 feet, and a nicely proportioned wingspan of 80 feet.

Malachite Reapers are most easily distinguished from their more common cousins by colouration: while Yellow Reapers are mottled yellow, sometimes with white tiger-striping along their sides and wings, Malachite Reapers are a more muted yellow-brown with pale green markings. They are generally believed to be the result of unguided interbreeding during the Anglo-Saxon conquests between Yellow Reapers and Scandinavian Lindorms. Preferring cooler climes, they are generally to be found in north-eastern Scotland.

From hunting records and bone collections, we know that the Grey Widowmaker breed was once very nearly as common as the Reapers, though now they are rarely to be found; this breed being so violently intractable and given to stealing domesticated cattle has been made nearly extinct through hunting, though some individuals may be found living wild even to this day in isolated mountainous regions, particularly in Scotland, and a few more have been coaxed into breeding grounds to preserve as basic stock. They are small and aggressive by nature, rarely exceeding 8 tonnes, and their colouration of mottled grey is ideal for concealment while flying, which inspired their cross-breeding with the more even-tempered Winchesters to produce the Greyling breed.

The most common French breeds, the Pêcheur-Couronné and Pêcheur-Rayé, are more closely related to the Widowmaker breed than to the Reapers, if we may judge by wing conformation and the structure of the breast-bone, which in both breeds is keeled and fused with the clavicle. This anatomical peculiarity renders them both more useful for breeding down into light-combat and courier breeds, rather than into heavy-combat breeds. . . .

Cross-breeding with Continental species is also the source of all the heavy-weight breeds now to be found in Britain, none of which can be considered properly native to our shores. Most likely this is due to climate: heavier dragons greatly prefer warm environs, where their air-sacs can more easily compensate for their tremendous weight. It has been suggested that the British Isles cannot support herds vast enough to sustain the largest breeds; the flaws to this chain of reasoning may be shown by consideration of the very wide variations in diet to be tolerated among dragons insofar as quantity is concerned.

In the wild, it is well known, dragons eat so infrequently as once every two weeks, particularly in summer when they prefer to sleep a great deal and their natural prey are at their fattest; it will then come as no surprise to learn that dragons in the wild do not begin to approach the sizes which can be found among their domesticated cousins, fed daily and more, particularly during the early years so critical to growth.

By way of example we have only to consider the barren desert regions of Almería in the south-east of Spain, scantly inhabited by goats, which are the native grounds of the fierce Cauchador Real, part ancestor of our own Regal Copper; in domestication this breed reaches a fighting weight of some 25 tonnes, but in the wild is scarcely to be found over 10 or 12 tonnes. . . .

The Regal Copper exceeds in size all other breeds presently known, reaching in maturity as many as 50 tonnes in weight and 120 feet in length. They are dramatic in colour, shading from red to yellow with much variation between individuals. The male of the species is on the average slightly smaller than the female and develops forehead horns in maturity; both sexes have a marked spiny column along the back, which renders them particularly hazardous targets for boarding operations.

These great beasts are unquestionably the greatest triumph of the British breeding grounds, the product of some ten generations’ labour and careful cross-breeding, and illustrative of the unanticipated benefits which may be yielded by matings not perhaps of obvious value. It was Roger Bacon who first proposed the notion of breeding females of the smaller Bright Copper species to the great sire Conquistador, brought to England as part of the dowry of Eleanor of Castile. Though his suggestions were founded in the erroneous supposition of the time, which thought colour to be indicative of some elemental influence, and the shared orange colour of the two breeds a sign of underlying congruence, the cross was a fruitful one, leading to offspring even larger than their prodigious sire, and better able to sustain flight over distance.

Mr. Josiah Colquhoun of Glasgow has suggested that the disproportionate size of the air-sacs of the Bright Copper, relative to their frame, properly deserves the credit for this success, and it is certain that Regal Coppers share this trait of their female progenitors. M. Cuvier’s anatomical studies suggest that indeed the vast bulk of the Regal Copper would crush the very breath out of the dragons’ lungs, if unsupported by aught but their surprisingly delicate skeletal systems. . . .

While no pyrogenic species are to be found in the British Isles, despite many attempts on the part of our breeders to induce this most valuable trait, so deadly to our shipping in the persons of the French Flamme-de-Gloire and the Spanish Flecha-del-Fuego, the native Sharpspitter breed is notable for producing a venom to incapacitate its prey. Though the Sharpspitter itself is too small and low-flying to be of great value as a fighting beast, cross-breeding with the French Honneur-d’Or, for size, and with the Russian Ironwing, another venomous species, yielded several valuable crosses: better fliers, middle-weight in size, with more potent venom.

Interbreeding among these, with frequent infusions from the parent breeds, culminated in the successful hatching of the first dragon which can properly be termed a Longwing, during the reign of Henry VII. In this breed, the venom had become so potent as to be more properly termed acid, and of a strength which could be turned not only against other beasts, but against targets upon the ground. The only other truly vitriolic breeds known to us at present are the Copacati, an Incan breed, and the Ka-Riu of Japan.

Longwings are unfortunately instantly identifiable upon the battlefield and impossible to decoy, due to the unusual proportions for which they are named; though they rarely exceed 60 feet in length, wingspans of 120 feet are not uncommon among them, and their wing colouration is particularly dramatic, shading from blue to orange, with vivid black-and-white striations at the rims. They possess the same yellow-orange eyes as their progenitor the Sharpspitter, which are exceptionally good. Though the breed was first considered intractable, and indeed some consideration was given to their destruction, as too dangerous to be left unharnessed, during the reign of Elizabeth I new methods of harnessing were developed which secured the general domestication of the breed, and they were instrumental in the destruction of the Armada. . . .

Comparison of Oriental and Western breeds—Antiquity of the Oriental breeds—Known Breeds native to the Empires of China and Japan—Distinguishing characteristics of the Imperial—A note on the Celestial.

. . . THE SECRETS OF the Imperial breeding programme are most jealously guarded, as the national treasures which they assuredly are, and transmitted strictly through word of mouth among a trusted line and through documents encoded by closely held ciphers. Very little is therefore known in the West, and indeed anywhere outside the precincts of the imperial capital, about these breeds.

Brief observations by travellers have yielded only a handful of incomplete details; we know that the Imperial and Celestial are distinguished by the number of talons on their claws, which are five, unlike virtually every other draconic breed, being four-fingered; similarly, their wings have six spines rather than the five common to European breeds. In the Orient, these breeds are popularly supposed to be highly superior in intelligence, retaining into adulthood that remarkable facility of memory and linguistic ability which dragons ordinarily lose early in life.

For the veracity of this claim we have but one recent witness, though a reliable one: M. le Comte de la Pérouse encountered an Imperial dragon at the Korean court, who through their close relations to the court of China have been often granted the privilege of an Imperial egg. The first Frenchman to attend at this court in recent memory, he was asked for lessons in his native tongue, and by his reports, the dragon though full-grown was well able to hold a conversation by the time of his departure, some one month later, an achievement hardly to be scorned even by a gifted linguist. . . .

That the Celestial is closely related to the Imperial may be inferred from the few illustrations we in the West have managed to obtain of this breed, but very little else is known of them. The divine wind, that most mysterious of draconic abilities, is known to us only by hearsay, which would have us believe that the Celestials are able to produce earthquakes or storms, capable of leveling a city. Plainly the effects have been heartily exaggerated, but there is considerable practical respect for the ability among the Oriental nations, which cautions against any rash dismissal of this gift as pure phantasy. . . .