TACITUS AND THE PHCENIX 



mouth, while in the cranes a soft interval is left in the 

 middle line. Cranes, moreover, do not as a rule perch 

 high up in trees or upon buildings ; while both herons 

 and storks do. Our particular crane is a native of 

 Africa only, in which continent it is represented to-day 

 by two species, to which the scientific names of Balearica 

 chrysopelargus and B. pavonina are applied. Balearica 

 suggests another habitat ; but apparently the occurrence 

 of either species of crane away from Africa is extremely 

 rare. It has, however, been alleged to have been, 

 in the eighteenth century, an inhabitant of the Bale- 

 aric islands. This evidence however, when duly sifted, 

 appears to amount to a statement by a Spanish gentle- 

 man who died in 1784, that he had heard it said that a 

 specimen was found in those islands in the year 1780. 

 Its rarity in Europe and Northern Africa and its occa- 

 sional wanderings into these countries, coupled with 

 its beautiful crown of gold, may perhaps be at the 

 bottom of the phoenix stories. Tacitus tells how in 

 the consulship of Fabius and Vitellius, " Post longum 

 saeculorum ambitum avis phoenix in ^Egyptum venit." 

 Now so rare is the crowned crane in Egypt that the late 

 Mr. Blyth could find no record of its occurrence in 

 that country. Thus a rarely appearing bird, unfamiliar 

 therefore, and with a flame-like and radiating crown of 

 feathers, would strike an imaginative people as some- 

 thing odd ; and out of these actual facts one hardly 

 knows what superstructure may have been built. 

 There is a pretty tall one if the phoenix has anything 

 to do with this bird. Barring the eagle's beak, the crowned 

 crane would serve as an excellent replica of the phoenix 

 in the so-called Life Assurance Corporation's advertise- 

 ment. We are, however, concerned here with a living 

 and very real, and not with a fabulous, bird. In the 

 skull of the crowned crane is a curious feature which is 

 not a little deceptive. Underneath the crest the fore- 



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