NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 41 



Phoenix selon que le viilgaire a costume de le portraire/ 

 on his fiery funeral pile, gazing at a noon-day radiant 

 sun with as good eyes, nose, and mouth, as ever appeared 

 over mine host's door, with the following choice morsel 

 of poetry: — 



O du phoenix la divine excellence ! 

 Ayant vescu seul sept cens soixante ans, 

 II mem-t dessus des ramees d'ancens : 

 Et de sa cendre un autre prend naissance. 



It is to be hoped, for the sake of the son, that this 

 is the correct version. The carriage of ashes from 

 Arabia to Egypt, wrapped up in myrrh, is a very 

 different task from the porterage of a dead body thence 

 and thither. 



Some, again, declare that the bird never died at all ; 

 but that when Age ' clawed him in his clutch,' and he 

 found himself not quite so jaunty as in the vaward of 

 his youth, he collected the choicest perfumed woods of 

 Araby the Blest, waited patiently for fire from heaven 

 to kindle the 'spicy' pile, burnt away what we have 

 heard termed ' his old particles,' and came forth as if he 

 had drunk of the renovating elixir of life. 



But what right had the phoenix to such pleasant im- 

 mortality? 



Because he never ate the forbidden fruit. 



Moreover, there is a place in Arabia, near the city of 

 Buto, to which Herodotus went on hearing of some 

 winged serpents ; and when he arrived there, he saw 

 bones and spines of serpents in such quantities as it 

 would be impossible to describe ; there they were in 

 heaps, and of all sizes. Now this place is a narrow 

 pass between two mountains, opening into a spacious 

 plain contiguous to that of Egypt ; and it is reported, 

 says he of Halicamassus, that at the commencement of 

 spring, winged serpents fly from Arabia towards Egypt, 

 but the ibises meet them at the pass, and kill them; for 



