Basilisk

Of all the legendary monsters there were no more hideous than the basilisk [Gallo Conoda di Serpente], also cockatrice. It was partly a snake, partly a rooster and came out from an egg that had been layed by a seven years old rooster at the time when Sirius was high. The egg was spherical and covered of a thick membrane. Sometimes a toad was brooding the egg - for nine years. The creature that came out from the egg after this had a breath that parched the earth and a look that could kill everything - even the basilisk itself.

Many infidels deny this creature's existence, but Semprello Aurator saw and handled one that had been blinded by lightning as a punishment for having fatally gased on a lady of rank whom Jupiter loved. Juno afterward restored the reptile's sight and hid it in a cave. Nothing is so well attasted by the ancients as the existence of the basilisk.