Ornithological and Other Oddities 



arrived. Some of these were exhibited at a 

 meeting of the Zoological Society, and thus the 

 American mudfish received a definite social status 

 as a credible creature ; just as, many years ago, 

 did the apteryx, faith in which was beginning 

 to wane, when a specimen was exhibited to 

 convince scientific Thomases. 



The moral of these facts is obvious. A later 

 age has often been too ready to set down some 

 of the remarkable zoology of the classical writers 

 as the unadulterated product of an unlimited 

 gullibility. The most monstrous fables, how- 

 ever, are apt to contain a core of truth ; and 

 these casual reappearances of obsolescent animals 

 may well stimulate us in the search thereof. 

 Take the phoenix, for example. Even in 

 Tacitus's time information about this celebrated 

 bird was vague and conflicting to a degree, 

 though the historian seems to have had no 

 doubt but that it was something. One turned 

 up in the days of Tiberius, creating great excite- 

 ment among contemporary scientists. Some 

 people, however, said it wasn't genuine, a 

 phoenix not being due for several centuries to 

 come. These would have it that your true 

 phoenix only appeared at intervals of 1461 

 years, instead of 500, as the common report 

 went ; and that only three were on record, 



which had flown into Heliopolis, the Egyptian 



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