UNNATURAL HISTORY 149 



kinds of absurd stories regarding them. For example, 

 it was universally believed that kingfishers laid their 

 eggs on the sea, which kindly kept calm for a fortnight 

 to enable them to incubate successfully. 



The hoopoe was supposed to contain within it a 

 stone, which, when placed upon the breast of a sleeping 

 man, compelled him to reveal all the crimes he had 

 committed. The pelican was said to feed its young 

 with its blood, a supposition which any one could have 

 disproved by casually watching the breeding operations 

 of this bird. The death-song of the swan was another 

 mediaeval myth which has persisted even to the present 

 day, for there still exist people who believe that a swan 

 when it is about to die, sings most sweetly. 



Not very long ago men imagined that to look a toad 

 full in the face meant instant death ! Even in this 

 twentieth century there are plenty of writers of un- 

 natural history. I remember reading, not many years 

 ago, in an English daily paper, of a girl who, when she 

 cried, shed the ray florets of daisies (the paper called 

 them " petals "), instead of tears. The sea-serpent con- 

 tinually crops up, but we must pass over this important 

 creature ; we will not insult him by crowding him into 

 the middle of a chapter. 



Nowadays, most children are instructed in the rudi- 

 ments of zoology, and are taught to use their reasoning 

 faculties, so those who manufacture unnatural history 

 have to proceed far more warily than they used to. 

 They usually confine themselves to stories of unusual 

 intelligence on the part of some animal. 



There is, for example, the dear old " chestnut " about 



