14 



LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATU- 

 RALIST. 



PART IV. 



AFRICA, of all the quarters of the old world, is 

 the country of wonders. Take up a steady-going 

 book of travels, or the Arabian Nights, what region 

 like Africa 1 Open a volume of natural history, 

 the older the better, and the African marvellous 

 forms throw all the others into shade. Did not the 

 phoenix live there, and make its appearance among 

 the Heliopolitans only once in five hundred years ? 

 He came on the death of his sire in shape and size 

 like an eagle, with his glorious particolored wings 

 of golden hue set off with red, dutifully bearing 

 from Arabia the body of his father to his burial- 

 place in the temple of the sun, and there piously 

 deposited the paternal corpse in the tomb. 



But how did the phoenix carry him to the grave ? 

 As the kite carried Cock Robin, I suppose. 



No madam ; he brought his revered, deceased 

 parent in this manner. He first formed a large 

 egg of myrrh, and then, having by trial ascertained 

 that he could carry it, he hollowed out the artificial 

 egg, put his parent into it, stopped up the hole 

 through which he had introduced the body, with 

 more myrrh, so that the weight was the same as the 

 solid egg of myrrh, and performed the funeral in 

 Egypt.* 



If you would see the manner of his death, turn 

 to the Portraits d'Oyseaux, Animoux, Serpens, 

 Herbes, Arbres, Hommes et Femrnes (T Arable et 

 Egypte, observez par P. Belon du mans ;f and 

 there you will behold " Le Phoenix selon que le 

 vulgaire 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 meurt 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 

 immortality ? 



Because he never ate the forbidden fruit. 



Moreover, there is a place in Arabia, near the 



* Herodotus, Euterpe. 



t Paris, 1557. 



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 Halicarnas- 

 sus, 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 

 which service the ibis is held in high reverence 



the Egyptians.* 



The " serpent selle" that fled near Mount Sinai, 

 figured by Belon, was probably one of this ghastly 

 revv of invaders. 



And here a word for Herodotus, who has been 

 accused of all sorts of Munchausenisms. It will be 

 generally found, that whatever he says he himself 

 saw has been corroborated by modern eye-witnesses. 

 In the case of the phoenix he writes " They say 

 that he has the following contrivance, which, in 

 my opinion, is not credible ;" and then he relates 

 the story of the egg of myrrh, and of the son's 

 carrying the father's body into Egypt. Again, he 

 heard of winged serpents, but says he saw the 

 bones of serpents, which he doubtless did ; and after 

 describing the black ibis which fights with the 

 serpents, at the conclusion of the chapter he evi- 

 dently alludes to the report, when he says that the 

 form of the serpent is like that of the water-snake, 

 but that he has wings without feathers, and as like 

 as may be to the wings of a bat. 



When we take a glance at the map, and see 

 what an enormous area of African territory is still 

 an undiscovered country, even in this age of enter- 

 prise, can we wonder that romance has been busy 

 with the vast and unknown tracts T Many of the 

 animals which are known to us are of extraordinary 

 shape and habits ; and it was but the other day 

 that Professor Owen described a new species of 

 anthropoid apes, the Gorilla, more horrible in 

 appearance than any phantom that Fuseli ever 

 imagined. Look at the proportions of the giraffe, 

 with its prehensile tongue and its mode of progres- 

 sion, by moving two legs on the same side together, 

 so that both feet are off the ground at the same 

 time. But we must not multiply examples which 

 will occur to most of our readers. 



A few years only have elapsed since the giraffe 

 has been made familiar to modern Europeans, and 

 in no country have so many been kept together as 

 in the British islands. In the garden of the 

 Zoological Society they have bred regularly and 

 well, and the offspring, with one exception, have 

 lived and thriven. Still there are three huge 

 African forms which have never yet made their 

 appearance in that extensive and noble vivarium 

 the African elephant, the hippopotamus, and the 

 African rhinoceros, of which last there are several 

 species. By the enterprise of the society, aided 

 by the prudent zeal of Mr. Mitchell, we may soon 



* Euterpe, 74. 



