354 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



same words with Pliny; ^Elian*, who marvels how 

 it can calculate the exact number of years at the 

 termination of which it is necessary to build its 

 funeral nest, and how it can fly unerringly to Heli- 

 opolis ; and Philostratusf, who says the Egyptians 

 sing elegiac hymns at its decease. We shall content 

 ourselves with the notice which has been taken of it 

 by Tacitus : 



" Paulus Fabius and Lucius Vitellius succeeded to 

 the consulship (A. u. c. 787, A. D. 34). In the course 

 of the year, the miraculous bird known to the world 

 by the name of the phoenix, after disappearing for a 

 series of ages, revisited Egypt. A phenomenon so 

 very extraordinary could not fail to produce abun- 

 dance of various speculation. The learning of Egypt 

 was displayed, and Greece exhausted her ingenuity. 

 The facts about which there seems to be a concur- 

 rence of opinions, with other circumstances, in their 

 nature doubtful, yet worthy of notice, will not be 

 unwelcome to the reader. 



' That the phoenix is sacred to the sun, and differs 

 from the rest of the feathered species, in the form of 

 its head and the tincture of its plumage, are points 

 settled by the naturalists. Of its longevity the ac- 

 counts are various. The common persuasion is that 

 it lives five hundred years, though by some writers 

 the date is extended to fourteen hundred and sixty- 

 one. The several eras when the phoenix has been 

 seen are fixed by tradition. The first, we are told, 

 was in the reign of Sesostris ; the second in that of 

 Amasis ; and in the period when Ptolemy, the third 

 of the Macedonian race, was seated on the throne of 

 Egypt, another phoenix directed its flight towards 

 Heliopolis, attended by a group of various birds, all 

 attracted by the novelty, and gazing with wonder at 

 so beautiful an appearance, For the truth of this 



* De Animalibus, vi. 58. f De Vit. Apollon, iii. 



