THE VELVET DUCK. 257 



As a matter of fact, however, Pope Innocent III., better 

 instructed than Aristotle in this department of natural history, 

 passed sentence on all these tales by forbidding its use during 

 Lent ; but no one, either in the monasteries, the castles, or the 

 taverns, has ever looked at this interdict of the sovereign pontiff 

 in a serious point of view. 



This controverted question, however, met with an unexpected 

 solution. Gerard Yeer, a Dutch navigator, in one of his voyages 

 to the north of Europe, found some eggs of the Velvet Duck. 

 Being ignorant of their nature, he brought them home, put them 

 under a hen, and, when they were hatched, the produce exactly 

 resembled the birds which were asserted by the ancients to proceed 

 from the decay of vegetable matter. Gerard Yeer made the 

 announcement that these birds bred in Greenland, thus affording 

 a complete explanation of the absence of their eggs in southern 

 countries. 



This discovery of the Dutch navigator met with no favourable 

 reception. The custom of eating the Velvet Duck in Lent had 

 been long established ; the Church allowed it, and every one was 

 satisfied. Gerard Veer was sent back to his galliot, and all kinds 

 of reasons were found for satisfying the consciences and stomachs 

 of the faithful, which had been justly alarmed. 



There was, however, no deficiency in the arguments brought 

 forward. It was asserted that the feathers of the Velvet Duck 

 were of quite a different nature from those of other birds ; that 

 their blood was cold, and that it did not coagulate when shed ; 

 that their fat, like that of fishes, had the property of never harden- 

 ing. The analogy between the Velvet Duck and the fishes being 

 thus clearly established, the permission of the councils remained 

 in full force. 



Finally, as the writers of the Middle Ages and the Renais- 

 sance were but indifferent naturalists, and had very vaguely 

 described the Velvet Duck, the same mode of reproduction was 

 ascribed to several other marsh-birds. As a matter of course, 

 the same toleration in Lent was extended to them. The faith- 

 ful were thus in the habit of indulging in various other birds, 

 such as the Brent and Bernicle Geese. The opposing claims 

 of devotion and appetite being thus harmlessly satisfied, no one 



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