159 



JEDitorial. 



MEDIAEVAL ORNITHOLOGY :— In all times the 

 physician — to use the term in its broad sense — has 

 rightly regarded his art as a specially considered 

 1) ranch of Natural History, and we therefore feel no 

 surprise on finding that such men as Aristotle, John 

 Hunter, and Ambroise Pare, bestowed more or less 

 attention on the science in its all round aspect. But 

 every man has his own personality to contend with, 

 and so while Aristotle was in the main only a great 

 collector of specimens, and Hunter an indefatigable 

 searcher after the physiological truths which underly 

 ordinary visible phenomena. Pare was but a credulous 

 purveyor of the then current inanities pertaining to 

 fishes, beasts, and birds. And this is the more ex- 

 traordinary, seeing that as a surgeon he was of more 

 than ordinary celebrity and abilit}^ and is very pro- 

 perly regarded as the father of French surgery. 



In his voluminous folio, (originally published on 

 Feb. 8tli, 1579 as the result of fifty years professional 

 work in his capacity of hospital surgeon, army doctor, 

 and medical adviser to more than one King of France 

 and their courts), we find accounts of various animals 

 of the weirdest description, accompanied by plates, 

 some of which make one's hair literally stand on end. 

 The edition I am about to quote from is Johnson's 

 1649 translation " out of Latine," and this is what we 

 read anent the Bird of Paradise. 



''Jerome Cardane in his Books De Snbiililate, 

 "writes that in the Island of the Moluccas yow may 

 "sometimes find lying upon the ground, or take up in 

 " the waters, a dead Bird called a Maiiucodiaia, that is 



