KINGFISHERS, SCARCITY OF 21 



danger. Their Hens know no other Cocke but 

 their owne : They never forsake him all the daies 

 of their life : and if the Cocke chance to be weake 

 and crazed, the Hen will take him upon her neck, 

 and carrie him with her, wheresoever she goeth, 

 and serve him even untill death. Man's wit could 

 never yet attaine to the full knowledge of that 

 admirable kinde of building or structure which the 

 Haltion useth in contriving of her neast, no, nor 

 devise what it is of. 



" Plutarke, who hath seen and handled many of 

 them, thinkes it to be made of certaine fish-bones, 

 which she so compacts and conjoyneth together, 

 enterlacing some long, and some cross-waies, add- 

 ing some foldings and rounding s to it, that in the 

 end she frameth a round kind of vessel, readie to 

 floate and swime upon the water ; which done, she 

 carrieth the same where the sea waves beat most ; 

 there the sea, gently beating upon it, shewes her 

 how to daube and patch up the parts not well 

 closed, and how to strengthen those places, and 

 fasten those ribs, that are not fast, but stir with the 

 sea waves ; and on the other side that which is 

 closely wrought, the sea beating on it, doth so 

 fasten and conjoyne together, that nothing, no, not 

 stone or yron, can any way loosen, divide, or break 

 the same, except with great violence ; and what is 

 most to be wondered at is the proportion and figure 

 of the concavitie within : for, it is so composed and 

 proportioned, that it can receive or admit no manner 

 of thing, but the bird that built it : for to all things 



