her young ones. Made tame she will cleane a house of Flyes, and catch Mice. She foreshews Rain when she cries; which also Field Scorpions do, called Mares, Cuckows; who by flying overthwart, and crying loudly, foreshew Rain at hand; also the larger Scorpions, with huge long snouts, fore signifie Rain; so do Woodpeckers. There is a Bird also called Rayn, as big as a Partridge that hath Feathers of divers colours, of a yellow, white, and black colour: This is supposed to live upon nothing but Ayr, though she be fat, nothing is found in her belly. The Fowlers hunt her with long poles, which they cast high in the Ayr to fright her, so that they may catch the Bird flying down.”
The Ostrich.
Modern observation, and especially Ostrich farming, has thoroughly exploded the old errors respecting this bird. We believe in its powers of swallowing anything not too large, but not in its digesting everything, and certainly not, as Muenster would fain have us believe, that an Ostrich’s dinner consists of a church-door key, and a horse-shoe. As matters of fact, we know that, when pursued, they do not bury their heads in the sand, or a bush; and instead of covering their eggs with sand, and leaving the sun to hatch them,
both the male and female are excellent, and model parents.
Pliny, however, says differently:—“This bird exceeds in height a man sitting on horseback, and can surpass him in swiftness, as wings have been given to aid it in running; in other respects Ostriches cannot be considered as birds, and do not raise themselves from the earth. They have cloven talons, very similar to the hoof of the stag (they have but two toes); with these they fight, and they also employ them in seizing stones for the purpose of throwing at those who pursue them. They have the marvellous property of being able to digest every substance without distinction, but their stupidity is no less remarkable: for although the rest of their body is so large, they imagine when they have thrust their head and neck into a bush, that the whole body is concealed.”
Giovanni Leone Africano writes that “this fowle liveth in drie desarts and layeth to the number of ten or twelve egges in the sand, which being about the bignesse of great bullets weigh fifteen pounds a piece; but the ostrich is of so weak a memorie, that she presently forgetteth the place where her egges were laid, and, afterwards the same, or some other ostrich hen finding the said eggs by chance hatched and fostereth them as if they were certainely her owne. The chickens are no sooner crept out of the shell but they prowle up and downe the desarts for their food, and before theyr feathers be growne they are so swifte that a man shall hardly overtake them. The ostrich is a silly and deafe creature, feeding upon any thing which it findeth, be it as hard and indigestible as yron.”
The Halcyon.
Of this bird, the Kingfisher, Aristotle thus discourses:—“The halcyon is not much larger than a sparrow; its colour is blue and green, and somewhat purple; its whole body is composed of these colours as well as the wings and neck, nor is any part without every one of these colours. Its bill is somewhat yellow, long and slight; this is its external form. Its nest resembles the marine balls which are called halosachnæ (probably a Zoophyte, Alcyonia) except in colour, for they are red; in form it resembles those sicyæ (cucumbers) which have long necks; its size is that of a very large sponge, for some are greater, others less. They are covered up, and have a thick solid part, as well as the cavity; it is not easily cut with a sharp knife, but, when struck or broken with the hand, it divides readily like the halosachnæ. The mouth is narrow, as it were a small entrance, so that the sea water cannot enter, even if the Sea is rough: its cavity is like that of the Sponge. The material of which the nest is composed is disputed, but it appears to be principally composed of the spines of the belone, for the bird lives on fish.”
Pliny says:—“It is a thing of very rare occurrence to see a halcyon, and then it is only about the time of the setting of the Vergiliæ, and the summer and winter solstices; when one is sometimes to be seen to hover about a ship, and then immediately disappear. They hatch their young at the time of the winter solstice, from which circumstance those days are known as the ‘halcyon days;’ during this period the sea is calm and navigable, the Sicilian sea in particular.”