Even as Queen Lurline watched, fascinated by the strange spectacle, the Mimics shifted and changed and flitted from one loathsome shape to another. A monster bird with leathery wings and a horned head dropped to the ground, and in another second assumed the squat body of a huge toad with the head of a hyena, snarling with laughter. A crawling red lizard, all of ten feet in length, turned into a giant butterfly with black wings and the body of a serpent. A great, green bat with wicked talons alighted on a ledge not far from Queen Lurline and in an instant changed to a mammoth, hairy creature with the body of a huge ape and the head of an alligator.