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.