352 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



ing out of Arabia, it brings its parent to the temple of 

 the sun, having previously enveloped him with myrrh, 

 and buries him in the temple of the sun : that it 

 conveys him in the following manner ; in the first 

 place it shapes an egg of myrrh of such a volume 

 as it is able to carry, and then tries whether it can 

 carry it ; after it has completed the trial, it hollows 

 out the egg, and places its parent on the inside of 

 it, and then closes with other myrrh that part of the 

 egg by which it introduced the body of its parent. 

 The body lying in the inside, the weight is the same. 

 Having thus enveloped him, it carries him into 

 Egypt to the temple of the sun. Such are the 

 actions which they represent this bird as perform- 

 ing*" 



The following description by Pliny is chiefly, if not 

 wholly, derived from Herodotus. " The birds," he 

 says, " of Ethiopia and India are for the most part 

 of diverse colours, and such as a man is hardly able to 

 decipher and describe ; but the phoenix of Arabia 

 passes all others. Howbeit I cannot tell what to 

 make of him : and first of all whether it be a tale or 

 no that there is never but one of them in all the 

 world, and the same not commonly seen. By report 

 he is as big as an eagle ; for colour, as yellow and 

 bright as gold, (namely, all about the neck;) the 

 rest of the body a deep red purple : the tail azure 

 blue, intermingled with feathers among of rose car- 

 nation colour ; and the head bravely adorned with a 

 crest and penache finely wrought, having a tuft and 

 plume thereupon right goodly to be seen. Manilius, 

 the noble Roman senator, right excellently seen in 

 the best kind of learning and literature, and yet 

 never taught by any, was the first man of the long 

 robe who wrote of this bird at large, and most exqui- 

 sitely he reporteth, that never man was known to see 

 * Herodotus, Euterpe, 73, Laurent's Trans. 



