Natural history, lore and legend

Though a belief in the phœnix has long since died away it was for a thousand years or more as much an article of credence as a swan or an eagle. As far as we are aware, the first reference to it is found in the pages of Herodotus, and the story, as he tells it in the seventy-third chapter of the second book of his history, was the basis upon which for centuries a vast superstructure of fabledom was reared.

Even Tacitus, one of the most cautious and reliable of authors, seems to have felt no difficulty in believing in the existence of the phœnix. Erroneous as his account is, we feel at once on reading it that we have the opinions of one honestly seeking the truth, a very different sort of man to such a credulous old fellow, for example, as Maundevile. Tacitus writes that “in the course of the year⁠[70] the miraculous bird known to the world by the name of the phœnix, after disappearing for a series of ages, revisited Egypt. A phenomenon so very extraordinary could not fail to produce abundance of speculation. The facts, about which there seems to be a concurrence of opinions, with other circumstances in their nature doubtful, yet worthy of notice, will not be unwelcome to the reader. That the phœnix is sacred to the Sun, and differs from the rest of the feathered species in the form of its head and the tincture of its plumage, are points settled by the naturalist. Of its longevity the accounts are various. The common persuasion is that it lives five hundred years, though by some writers the date is extended to fourteen hundred and sixty-one. It is the custom of the phœnix when its course of years is finished, and the approach of death is felt, to build a nest in its native clime, Arabia, and there deposit the principles of life, from which a new progeny arises. The first care of the young bird, as soon as fledged and able to trust to its wings, is to perform the obsequies of its father. But this duty is not undertaken rashly. He collects a great quantity of myrrh, and to try his strength, makes frequent excursions with a load on his back. When he has made his experiment through a great tract of air, and gains sufficient confidence in his own vigour, he takes up the body of his father and flies with it to the Altar of the Sun, where he leaves it to be consumed in flames of fragrance. Such is the account of this wonderful bird. It has, no doubt, a mixture of fable; but that the phœnix from time to time appears in Egypt seems to be a fact satisfactorily ascertained.”

Pliny feels no difficulty in describing the phœnix, declaring that it is about the size of an eagle, the neck being of a golden sheen, the body purple, and the tail of an azure blue, though he admits feeling a doubt as to whether it can be true that only one is in existence at one time. According to Maundevile, “he hathe a Crest of Fedres upon his Hed more gret than the Poocok hathe, and his Nekke is yalowe aftre colour of an Orielle, that is a Ston well schynynge, and his Bek is coloured Blew, and his Wenges ben of purpre colour, and the Taylle is yelow and red. And he is a fulle fair Brid to loken upon, for he schynethe full nobely.” One wonders at first how this old writer is able to give such very precise details, but as he tells us that “this Bryd men sene often tyme fleen in the Countrees,” he would have no difficulty in getting a full description of it from some of these countrymen to whom it was a familiar sight.

Maundevile does not fail in his book of “Voiage and Travaile” to recite the whole wonderful story. He tells us that “in Egypt is the Cytee of Elyople,⁠[71] that is to seyne, the Cytee of the Sonne. In that Cytee there is a Temple made round, after the schappe of the Temple of Jerusalem. The Prestes of that Temple have alle here Wrytynges, under the Date of the Foul that is clept Fenix, and there is non but one in alle the Worlde. And he comethe to brenne him selfe upon the Awtre of the Temple at the end of five hundred Yeer: for so longe he lyvethe. And at the five hundred Yeres ende the Prestes arrayen here Awtere honestly and putten there upon Spices and Vif Sulphur and other thinges that wolm brenne lightly. And then the Bryd Fenix comethe and brenneth him self to Ashes. And the first Day aftre Men fynden in the Ashes a Worm; and the seconde Day next aftre Men finden a Brid quyk and perfyt; and the thridde Day next aftre he fleethe his wey. And so there is no more Briddes of that Kynde in alle the World but it alone.”

This belief in the phœnix is found not only through heathen and mediæval literature, but in the Rabbinical writings, and those of the early Fathers of the Christian Church. By these latter it was accepted as a symbol of the resurrection of the dead, and it may not unfrequently be found figured in the mosaics that adorn the basilicas of the primitive Church. The Rabbins tell us that all the birds, save the phœnix, shared in the sin of Eve, and eat of the forbidden fruit; hence the phœnix, as a reward, obtained this modified form of immutability. Philippe de Thaun, in his “Bestiary,” writes of the mystic bird: “Know this is its lot; it comes to death of its own will, and from death it comes to life: hear what it signifies. Phœnix signifies Jesus, Son of Mary, that he had power to die of his own will, and from death came to life. Phœnix signifies that to save his people he chose to suffer upon the cross.” “God knew men’s unbelief,” writes St. Cyril, “and therefore provided this bird as evidence of the Resurrection.” St. Ambrose says, too, that “the bird of Arabia teaches us, by its example, to believe in the Resurrection.” Other passages of like tenour could be quoted from Tertullian and others of the writers of the early Christian Church, and all alike show the most unquestionable belief in the existence of the bird.⁠[72]

It was suggested by Cuvier that at remote intervals a golden pheasant from China might have strayed as far west as Arabia or Egypt, and given rise to the legend; but gorgeous as the bird is, and fully capable of making a considerable sensation on its appearance in a land where it was previously unknown, one feels that such an appearance goes but a very little way indeed towards clearing up the mass of myth that still remains to be some way accounted for.

Browne, in his excellent dissection of the vulgar errors of his day, approaches the Phœnix story tenderly, but feels bound to declare against it, though he rather takes refuge in the Scottish verdict of “not proven” than slaughters it in cold blood. “That there is but one Phœnix in the world,” saith he, “which after many hundred yeares burneth itself, and from the ashes thereof ariseth up another, is a conceit not new or altogether popular, but of great Antiquity: not only delivered by humane Authors, but frequently expressed by holy Writers; by Cyril, Epiphanius, and others. All which, notwithstanding, we cannot presume the existence of this Animall, nor dare we affirm there is any Phœnix in Nature. For, first, there wants herein the definite test of things uncertain—that is, the sense of man. For though many writers have much enlarged hereon, there is not any ocular describer, or such as presumeth to confirm it upon aspection. Primitive Authors, from whom the stream of relations is derivative, deliver themselves dubiously, and either by a doubtful parenthesis, or a timorous conclusion, overthrow the whole relation. As for its unity or conceit that there should be but one in Nature, it seemeth not only repugnant unto Philosophy, but also Holy Scripture, which plainly affirmes there went of every sort two at least into the Ark of Noah. Every fowle after his kinde, every bird of every sort, they went into the Ark, two and two of all flesh wherein there is the breath of life. It infringeth the Benediction of God concerning multiplication. God blessed them, saying Be fruitfull and multiply and let fowls multiply in the earth, which terms are not applicable unto the Phœnix, whereof there is but one in the world, and no more now living than at the first benediction. As for longevity that it liveth a thousand years or more, besides that from imperfect observations and rarity of appearance no confirmation can be made, there may probably be a mistake in the compute. For the tradition being very ancient the conceit might have its originall in times of shorter compute. For if we suppose our present calculation, the Phœnix now in nature will be the sixt from the Creation, and but in the middle of its years, and, if the Rabbine’s prophecy succeed, it shall conclude its daies not in its own, but in the last and generall flames.”

Some medical enthusiasts held that a bird of such singular and noble properties must be of sovereign virtue for the ills of mankind, and did not hesitate to assign its several healing properties. On these mistaken individuals Browne descends heavily. “Surely,” quoth he, “they were not wel-wishers unto Physick or remedies easily acquired, who derived Medicines from the Phœnix, as some have done. It is a folly to finde out remedies that are not recoverable under a thousand years, or propose the prolonging of life by that which the twentieth generation may never behold. More veniable is a dependence upon the Philosopher’s stone, potable gold, or any of those Arcanas whereby Paracelsus, that died himself at fourty seven, gloried that he could make men immortall, which, although exceedingly difficult, yet they are not impossible: nor doe they (rightly understood) impose any violence on Nature. And, therefore, if strictly taken for the Phœnix, very strange is that which is delivered by Plutarch, that the brain thereof is a pleasant morsel, but that it causeth the headach.” The amount of headache caused by too free an indulgence in Phœnix must have been infinitesimal.

The Phœnix may still be considered to have a literary existence, and remains part of the stock-in-trade of the orator and poet as an emblem of something especially choice and rare. Fletcher writes of

Ariosto, in his “Orlando Furioso,” refers to the bird in the Voyage of Astolfo in the following lines:—

In the two foregoing extracts the Phœnix has been represented as maiden and as widow, and in the first line of Ariosto the pronoun is masculine, and in the fourth line feminine. Ovid, and many other writers, in describing him, her, or it, select the masculine as the most appropriate. Thus Ovid, in the translation of Dryden, sings:—

It is needless to give the rest of the reference, as the ancient poet naturally follows in the lines of the recognized tradition: the funeral pyre, the infant Phœnix rising from the ashes, the dutiful removal of the paternal remains to Heliopolis, all taking their proper and accustomed place in the narrative.

Shakespeare frequently refers to the mythical bird in his writings, and seems to have thoroughly mastered all that could be said on the subject. Some half-dozen passages naturally rise to one’s mind as illustrations of this: thus Rosalind says in As You Like It:—

And the idea of its unique character is again brought out in Cymbeline, in the passage “If she be furnished with a mind so rare, she is alone the Arabian bird.” The destruction of the bird on its own funeral pyre, and the resurrection of its successor therefrom, are several times referred to. Thus in 1 Henry VI. we read: “But from their ashes shall be reared a Phœnix that shall make all France afeared,” and in 3 Henry VI.: “My ashes, as the Phœnix, may bring forth a bird that will revenge upon you all.” Some little doubt of its existence at all is suggested by the words of Sebastian in the Tempest. Now I will believe

Notwithstanding the doubts as to the reality of this creature that were freely expressed in the seventeenth century, two feathers that were said to be from the tail of a Phœnix were amongst the treasures of Tradescant’s Museum.⁠[73]

It was held a firm article of belief during the Middle Ages that the Bird of Paradise fed upon nothing more gross than the dew of Heaven and the odours of flowers, and that it had no feet, nor ever rested on earth at all.

It is a sadly prosaic explanation of this to recall that its footless condition simply arose from the fact that the natives of Molucca in sending the skins to Europe removed the legs and feet as needless additions, seeing that the beauty of the plumage was the reason for their export.

Tavernier relates that “the Birds of Paradise come in flocks during the nutmeg season to the South of India. The strength of the nutmeg odour intoxicates them, and while they lie in this state on the earth, the ants eat off their legs.” Saving the last terrible detail and shocking instance of what may befall those who stray from the paths of temperance, Moore evidently adopts this account in Lalla Rookh in the lines:—

Literary allusions to the Bird of Paradise are not unfrequent, and testify to the general acceptance of the myth that has grown up around the prosaic facts of the case. Francis Thynne, in his “Emblemes and Epigrames,” A.D. 1600, takes the somewhat exceptional view that the bird is to be pitied:—

The Roc or Rukh, though associated nowadays in our minds with the “Thousand and One Nights,” and regarded as simply an illustration of the lengths that the Eastern love of the wonderful can be carried to, was an article of faith with our ancestors. Marco Polo, in his wonderfully interesting book on his travels in Eastern lands, refers to this remarkable bird; but it will be noted that he merely gives the account as hearsay, and protects himself more than once from any admission of personal belief in the creature. He states respecting it as follows: “The people of the island⁠[74] report that at a certain season of the year an extraordinary kind of bird, which they call a rukh, makes its appearance from the southern region. In form it is said to resemble the eagle, but it is incomparably greater in size; being so large and strong as to seize an elephant with its talons, and to lift it into the air, from whence it lets it fall to the ground, in order that when dead it may prey upon the carcase. Persons who have seen this bird assert that when the wings are spread they measure sixteen paces in extent from point to point, and that the feathers are eight paces in length and thick in proportion. The Grand Khan, having heard this extraordinary relation, sent messengers to the island on the pretext of demanding the release of one of his servants who had been detained there, but in reality to examine into the circumstances of the country, and the truth of the wonderful things told of it. When they returned to the presence of his Majesty they brought with them (as I have heard) a feather of the Rukh, positively affirmed to have measured ninety spans. This surprising exhibition afforded his Majesty extreme pleasure, and upon those to whom it was presented he bestowed valuable gifts.”

The existence of such a bird seems to have been universally credited in the East. While the tale passes all belief as it stands, or rather as it lies, it may possibly be that it is grossly exaggerated rather than entirely fabulous, as it may have originated from the occasional sight of some bird of vast, though not miraculous, dimensions, such as the albatross, birds of fierce aspect, measuring many feet from tip to tip of their wings, though with strength and power of grip considerably short of transporting elephants from their umbrageous retreats to mid-air. The sixteen paces that are given by the informants of Marco Polo as the measurement of the wings would be about forty feet, while the wing-measurement of the albatross would not exceed fifteen or sixteen feet, thus leaving a handsome balance to be put to the credit of the love of the marvellous.

Jordanus brought back from India the story of “certain birds which are called Roc, that are so big that they easily carry an elephant into the air.” He did not himself see one of these, the nearest he is able to approach to this being, “I have seen a certain person who said that he had seen one of these birds.” The Roc was said to lay an egg equal in bulk to one hundred and forty-eight hen’s eggs. The precision of this estimate should disarm criticism: one feels in face of it that to have said one hundred and fifty would have been a fatal yielding to the charm of round numbers and a palpable exaggeration.

Mr. Lane refers to an Arab, one Ibou el Wardee, for authority for the statement that Rocs are found in an island in the Chinese Sea that have each wing ten thousand fathoms long.⁠[75] These birds find no difficulty in carrying an eagle in their beak, plus two others in their talons. Wardee also knew of a Roc’s egg, or said he did—which is, perhaps, not quite the same thing—on one of these islands that looked like an enormous white dome over a hundred cubits high and as firm as a mountain.

Many of the beliefs of our forefathers had a refreshing quaintness about them, and one of the quaintest, perhaps, of these was the notion that a particular kind of goose sprang from the barnacles that cluster in salt water on submerged wood. Butler, in his “Hudibras,” tells of those

Gerarde, in 1597, in his “Historie of Plants,” of which there are many editions—our own copy, we see, being dated 1633,—gives in all good faith a description and an illustration of the barnacle-goose tree. The former Gerarde shall give in his own words, the latter we have reproduced in fig. 15 in facsimile from his book. We see in it the branch bearing barnacles, and by its side a bird, which stands for the resulting goose. This “wonder of England, for the which God’s name be ever honoured and praised,” he thus discourses upon—“Hauing trauelled from the grasses growing in the bottom of the fenny waters, the woods and mountaines, euen unto Libanus it selfe, and also the sea and bowels of the same, wee are arriued at the end of our Historie; thinking it not impertinent to the conclusion of the same, to end with one of the maruells of this land, we may say of the world. The historie wherof to set forth according to the worthinesse and ranke therof would not only require a large and peculiar volume, but also a deeper search into the bowels of Nature than mine intended purpose will suffer me to wade into, my sufficience also considered, leauing the historie therof rough hewn unto some excellent men learned in the secrets of Nature, to be both fined and refined; in the meantime, take it as it falleth out, the naked and bare truth, though vnpolished. There are found in the North parts of Scotland and the islands adiacent, called Orchades, certaine trees whereon do grow certaine shells of a white colour tending to russett, wherein are contained little liuing things, which shells in time of maturitie do open, and out of them do grow those little liuing creatures, which falling in the water do become fowles, which we call Barnakles, and in Lancashire tree-geese, but the others that do fall upon the land perish and come to nothing. Thus much by the writings of others, and also from the mouths of people of those parts, which may very well accord with truth.

“But what our eyes haue seene and hands haue touched, we shall declare. There is a small island in Lancashire, called the pile of Foulders, wherein we find the broken pieces of old and bruised ships, some wherof haue been cast thither by shipwracke, and also the trunks and bodies with the branches of old and rotten trees cast up there likewise; whereon is found a certaine spawne or froth that in time breedeth unto certain shels, in shape like those of the muskle, but sharper-pointed, wherein is contained a thing in forme like a lace of silke finely wouen together as it were. One end thereof is fastened into a rude masse or lumpe, which in time commeth to the shape and form of a Birde. When it is perfectly formed the shel gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid lace or string: next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and as it groweth greater it openeth the shel by degrees til at length it is all come forth and hangeth onely by the bill: in short space after it commeth to ful maturitie, and falleth into the sea, when it gathereth feathers and groweth to a Fowle bigger than a Mallard and lesser than a Goose, hauing blacke legs and bill and beake, and feathers blacke and white, spotted in such manner as is our magpie, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than a tree-goose: which place therof and all those parts adioining doe so much abound therewith that one of the best is bought for threepence. For the truth wherof, if any doubt, may it please them to repair unto me, and I shall satisfie them by the testimony of good witnesses.”

On reading the foregoing one can only wonder what the old fellow really did see on this wild sea shore amidst the wreckage: that he wrote in the most perfect good faith, and in the strongest belief in this “Maruell,” is perfectly evident. That he has no desire to practise on our credulity is patent, but it is equally patent that his own credulity got the better of his judgment. He goes on to tell us that on another occasion, near Dover, he found on the sea shore an old tree-trunk covered with “thousands of long crimson bladders, in shape like unto puddings newly filled, and at the nether end therof did grow a shelfish fashioned somewhat like a small muskle.” Many of these shells he brought back with him to London, and on opening them he tells us that he found “liuing things that were very naked, shaped like a bird: in others the birds couered with a soft doune, the shel halfe open, and the bird ready to fall out; which no doubt were the fowles called Barnakles.”

Soon after Gerarde’s death, Thomas Johnson, “Citizen and Apothecarie of London,” brought out another edition of the “Historie of Plants,” in which he adds the following note to Gerarde’s statement: “The Barnakles, whose fabulous breed my Author here sets downe and diuers others have also deliuered, were found by some Hollanders to haue another originall, and that by egges, as other birds have: for they in their third voyage to find out the North-East passage to China and Mollocos, found little islands, in the one of which they found an abundance of these geese sitting upon their egges, of which they got one goose and tooke away sixty egges.” Here again one can only feel that the explanation needs explaining, as it hardly seems necessary to sail for China to find the home of the birds that were to be had retail in any quantity on the Lancashire coast, for the by no means extravagant price of sixpence a brace.

In a description of West Connaught by Roderic O’Flaherty, published in the year 1684, the barnacle is thus mentioned: “There is the bird engendered by the sea, out of timber long lying in the sea. Some call these birds Clakes and Solan’d geese, and some puffins, others barnacles.” And in the “Divine Weekes and Workes” of Du Bartas we find another reference:—

Another version of the barnacle-tree is given in fig. 16. We have extracted it from Parkinson’s “Theater of Plants,” a book that achieved considerable popularity and ran through several editions. Our own copy, from which we have reproduced the illustration, is dated 1640. Parkinson, we see, classes the barnacle-tree with “Marsh, Water, and Sea Plants, with Mosses and Mushrooms.” It seems curious that he should have inserted it at all, as his remarks thereupon are not at all those of a believer. “To finish this treatise of sea-plants,” he writes, “let me bring this admirable tale of untruth to your consideration, that whatever hath formerly been related concerning the breeding of these Barnakles to be from shels growing on trees is utterly erroneous, their breeding and hatching being found out by the Dutch and others, in their navigations to the Northward.” This second reference to the Dutch shows that the matter had caused some little stir outside England, and we may perhaps not too uncharitably assume that the foreigner did not feel altogether displeased when so great a British wonder was reduced to a very commonplace and everyday affair indeed.

The “Cosmography” of Munster supplies us with the graceful illustration which we have reproduced in facsimile in fig. 17. It is a far more charming representation than either of the others we have given. In the drawing the whole process may be clearly traced, from the immature and unopened fruit to that sufficiently ripe to give some indication of its strange contents in the form of the protruding head of the coming bird, and then on again to the geese actually fallen in the water, and more or less freeing themselves from the encumbering husk, until finally we see them in all respects fit and proper subjects for the ornithologist or the salesman of Leadenhall Market. Munster states in his book that “in Scotland we find trees, the fruit of which appears like a ball of leaves. This fruit, falling at its proper time into the water below, becomes animated, and turns to a bird which they call the tree-goose.”

Æneas Sylvius, afterwards better known to the world as Pope Pius II., visited Scotland in the year 1468, and while there made diligent inquiry concerning this wonderful tree, but found that no one could point it out to him. As the general impression that one gathers on reading his account of his travels is that he appeared in Scotland rather as a seeker after knowledge than as the recipient of a wonderful story till then unknown to him, we must conclude that the myth had spread considerably beyond the land of its origin. In fact, as we often find even unto the present day, in divers matters the intelligent stranger is often able to enlighten the natives on matters in which we might reasonably have expected to find them well informed. Who, for instance, would ever dream of asking the nearest resident to a cathedral anything of its history, or seeking from “the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain” any light on the mysterious origin of Stonehenge?

William Turner, one of the earliest writers on ornithology, described the barnacle-goose as being produced from “something like a fungus growing from old wood lying in the sea,” and quotes Giraldus Cambrensis as his authority. “Having uncomfortable misgivings I asked,” he writes, “a certain clergyman named Octavianus, by birth an Irishman, whom I knew to be worthy of credit, if he thought the account of Giraldus was to be believed. He, swearing by the Gospel, declared that which Giraldus had written about the bird was most true: that he had himself seen and handled the young unformed birds, and that if I would remain in London a month or two he would bring me some of the brood.” Whether Turner was satisfied by the very unsatisfying proof of the production of some dubious ducks in London, or by the solemn declaration and oaths taken on the Gospels by his reverent informant, we have no means of knowing, but as he inserts the wonder in his book, he was evidently relieved from his previous doubt of the veracity of the story.

In a land even beyond far distant Cathay, according to Maundevile, “growethe a maner of Fruyt as thoughe it weren gowrdes, and whan thei ben rype men kutten hem a to and fynden with inne a lytylle Best in Flessche, in Bon and Blode, as though it were a lytylle Lamb with outen Wolle. And Men eten bothe the Fruyt and the Best, and that is a gret Marveylle. Of that Frut I have eten, alle thoughe it were wondirfulle, but that I knowe wel that God is marveyllous in his Werkes. And nathles I tolde hem that in oure Contree weren Trees that beren a Fruyt that becomen Briddes fleeynge, and tho that fellen in the Water lyven, and thei that fellen on the Erthe dyen anon, and thei ben righte gode to Mannes mete. And here of had thei als gret marvaylle that sume of hem trowed it were an impossible thing to be.” One would have thought that people who were quite familiar with the sight of a lamb-tree would have found no great difficulty in believing in a goose-tree. Anyone who can credit the one should feel no hesitation in accepting the other.

Saxo Grammaticus, Lobel, Valcetro, and many other writers, refer to the barnacle-tree, some with full belief in it, others more dubiously, but it is, of course, needless to quote a multiplicity of authors. Should any of our readers themselves feel any doubt in the matter, they may very advantageously pay a visit to a good museum, where probably, even if they fail to find a goose-tree, they may see much else that will be almost equally a wonder and a delight to them.

The ancients thoroughly believed that the eagle proved her young by forcing them to gaze upon the sun, discarding any that failed to face the test, and the belief survived well into the Middle Ages. “Before that her little ones bee feathered she will beat and strike them with her wings, and thereby force them to looke full against the sunne beames. Now if shee see any one of them to winke or their eies to water at the raies of the sunne shee turnes it with the head foremost out of the nest as a bastard and none of hers, but bringeth up and cherisheth that whose eie will abide the light of the sunne as she looketh directly upon him.” It will be remembered that Shakespeare, in King Henry VI., refers to this old belief when the Duke of Gloucester addresses the young prince in the words—

In Ariosto, again, we have the same reference, where he styles the eagle

And Dryden exclaims in his “Britannia Rediviva,”

The keenness of vision of the eaglet⁠[77] has been noted in all ages, and its powers sometimes made even more astonishing than facts can justify. It has been asserted that when the eagle has soared into the air to a height that has rendered it perfectly invisible to human eye, it can discern the motions of the smaller animals upon the earth, and swoop down upon them from the sky, and Homer, in the “Iliad,” it will be recalled, describes Menelaus as

The eastern writers, ever given to hyperbole, have assigned to the eagle powers of vision of a far more astonishing character than this. One of them, Damir, quoted by Burckhardt, declares that the eagle can discern its prey at a distance of four hundred parasangs—more than a thousand miles—and poets of all periods have drawn striking images from the wonderful power of vision of the king of birds. Mediæval naturalists have asserted that this magnificent eyesight was strengthened even beyond its natural powers by a diet on the eagle’s part of wild lettuce, in the same way that the linnet cleared its sight by means of the eyebright, the swallow through use of the celandine, and divers other birds through use of some special herb that they had proved to be of value to them.

Our readers will doubtless remember the fine passage in the “Areopagitica” of Milton: “Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her as an eagle renewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam.” It was one of the beliefs of our forefathers that the eagle had this power of rejuvenescence. The description of the process has a very prosaic sound about it, but the result is highly successful. When the eagle “hathe darknesse and dimnesse in eien and hevinesse in wings against this disadvantage she is taught by kinde to seeke a well of springing water, and then she flyeth up into the aire as farre as she may, till she bee full hot by heat of the aire and by travaile of flight, and so then by heat the pores be opened, and the feathers chafed, and she falleth sideinglye into the well, and there the feathers be chaunged and the dimnesse of her eien is wiped away and purged, and she taketh againe her might and strength.”⁠[78]

It was a strange belief of the writers of antiquity on these natural history topics that the feathers of the eagle, when placed amongst those of other birds, in a short space of time entirely consumed them.

While the king of beasts has been credited with generosity and other royal virtues, the eagle, king of birds, seems not to have developed, either in nature or in fable, any such regal qualities. The most favourable estimate we have encountered is that of the “Speculum Mundi,” and even that leaves much to be desired. “The Eagle,” writes our authority, “is commended for her faithfulnesse towards other birds in some kinde, though sometimes she show herselfe cruell. They all stand in awe of her; and when she hath gotten meat she useth to communicate it unto such fowls as do accompany with her; onely this some affirme, that when she hath no more to make distribution of, then she will attack some of her guests, and for lack of food, dismember them.”

The eagle is often depicted as bearing the thunderbolts of Jove, from an ancient belief that “of all flying fowles the ægle only is not smitten nor killed with lightening.”

A man clothed in the skins of seals, or crowned with bay-leaves, enjoyed like immunity.

The pelican has been pressed into the service of religious symbolism, from a belief that it nourished its young with its own blood, and hence it was made the emblem of loving sacrifice.⁠[80] “The pelicane, whose sons are nursed with bloude, stabbeth deep her breast, self-murdresse through fondnesse to hir broode,” and the Shakespearian student will recall the lines in Hamlet:—

The whole myth is based upon a very slender basis indeed, as it is conjectured that it arose from the habit of the bird pressing its breast feathers with its bill, the bill itself having a crimson spot at its extremity that suggested the idea of blood. When the bird is represented in ecclesiastical work, or as a charge in heraldry, it is always shown in this position, and is known technically as “a pelican in her piety.” Many of the early writers accept the legend in the most perfect good faith, and no more doubted that the young pelicans were reared on the blood of the mother bird, than that hens would eat barley, or sparrows come for bread-crumbs. Some ecclesiastical writers, whom we cannot quite exonerate from acting on the principle that it is lawful to do ill if good flows from it, added the detail that when the young of the pelican were destroyed by serpents, the mother pelican shed her blood upon them, and brought them to life again, and hence became a striking symbol of the restoration to life of those dead in trespasses and sin by the vivifying blood of the Redeemer of mankind.

It was for many centuries a belief that the swan, mute through life, sang melodiously at its death.

“Wherein,” writes the author of the “Speculum Mundi,” “he is a perfect embleme and pattern to us, that our death ought to be cheerfull, and life not so deare unto us as it is.” Martial writes of the swan’s “joyful death, and sweet expiring song,” and Virgil, Lucretius, Horace, Ovid, and other ancient authors all refer to the belief. Cicero compared the excellent discourse which Crassus made in the senate a few days before his death to the melodious singing of a dying swan, while Socrates declared that good men ought to imitate swans, who, perceiving by a secret instinct what gain there was in death, die singing with joy.

Shakespeare refers frequently to the belief: thus in the Merchant of Venice Portia says: “Then if he lose he makes a swan-like end, fading in music.” After King John is poisoned his son, Prince Henry, is told that in his dying frenzy he sang; whereupon the prince replies:—