Willoughby states, in his work on Ornithology, that a friend of his possessed a gander eighty years of age, which in the end became so ferocious that they were forced to kill it, in consequence of the havoc it committed in the barn-yard. He also mentions a swan three centuries old and several parrots that attained the age of one hundred and fifty years.
Chaffinch Contest.
At the town of Armentières, in France, there is a fete du pays, in which the chaffinch and its fellows are the chief actors and objects of attraction. Numbers of these birds are trained with the greatest care and no small share of cruelty, for they are frequently blinded by their owners, that their song may not be interrupted by the sight of any external object. The point upon which the amusement, the honor and the emolument rests is the number of times a bird will repeat his song in a given time.
A day being fixed, the amateurs repair to the appointed place, each with his bird in a cage. The prize is then displayed, and the birds are placed in a row. A bird-fancier notes how many times each bird sings, and another verifies his notes. In the year 1812, a chaffinch repeated his song seven hundred times in one hour. Emulated by the songs of each other, they strain their little plumed throats, as if conscious that honor was to result from their exertions.
The Fabulous Roc.
The roc, the huge bird that gave Sindbad the sailor his ride through the air, is not to be compared with some of those mentioned in the Talmud. Some mariners saw one of those large birds standing up to the lower joint of the leg in a river, and thinking the water could not be deep, they were hastening to bathe, when a voice from heaven said: "Step not in there; seven years ago a carpenter dropped his axe there, and it hath not yet reached the bottom."
Fable of the Pelican.
The pelicans are said to carry water to their young, as well as food, in their pouch. During the night the pelican sits with its bill resting on its breast. The nail or hook which terminates the bill is red, and Mr. Broderip supposes that the ancient fable of the pelican feeding its young with blood from its own breast originated from its habit of pressing the bill upon the breast in order the more easily to empty the pouch, when the red tip might be mistaken for blood.