26 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



/EgicJii de Edinburgh nidificabant, et per unam ratam anni 

 ibi morabantur ; sed quo postea avolaverunt, nescitur. 

 Maxima est illis, ut dicit Plinius, cura foetus, adeo ut, dum 

 nidus perpensius fovent, assiduo accubitu plumas exuunt. 

 Sed et pullis non minus eximia pietas exstat erga matres : 

 nam quantum temporis matres impenderint foetibus 

 educandis, tanto tempore et ipsae a pullis aluntur. Unde 

 et pia avis dicitur." 



Translated in English, it runs as follows : 



In the year of our Lord, fourteen hundred and sixteen, 

 there died, on the morrow of the birth of Saint John the 

 Baptist, Master James Biset, Prior of Saint Andrews. In 

 this same year a pair of storks came to Scotland, and nested 

 on the top of the church of S. Giles of Edinburgh, and dwelt 

 there throughout a season of the year ; but to what place 

 they flew away thereafter no one knows. So very great is 

 their solicitude for their young, that as Pliny tells, while 

 they are tending their nest most closely, with constant 

 sitting they wear off their feathers. But not less extra- 

 ordinary parental duty is evinced by the chicks to their 

 mothers ; for at such time as the mother birds are burdened 

 with the rearing of their progeny, the old ones are even 

 fed by their young. Whence it is called "pia avis" the 

 dutiful bird. 



The learned Abbot's quotation from Pliny clearly 

 indicates that he was interested in bird-life, and also that 

 he had some knowledge of the literature relating to 

 that subject. 



The church of St Giles on which the Storks nested was 

 a new stone edifice commenced in 1387 to replace a former 

 church destroyed by fire in 1385, and some of it doubtless 

 forms part of the Cathedral of to-day. 



