362 HABITS OF BIRDS 



pass for a translation from Pliny's description of the 

 phoenix. 



Pliny records a story of an eagle somewhat like 

 that of Bruce, but approaching still more closely to 

 the fable of the phoenix. " There happened," he 

 says, " a marvellous example about the city Sestos, 

 of an eagle ; for which in those parts there goes a 

 great name of an eagle, and highly is she honoured 

 there. A young maid had brought up a young eagle 

 by hand ; the eagle again, to requite her kindness, 

 would first, when she was but little, fly abroad a 

 birding, and ever bring part of that she had gotten 

 unto her said nurse. In process of time, being grown 

 bigger and stronger, would set upon wild beasts also 

 in the forest, and furnish her young mistress conti- 

 nually with store of venison. At length, it fortuned 

 that the damsel died ; and when her funeral fire was 

 set a burning, the eagle flew into the midst of it, and 

 there was consumed into ashes with the corpse of 

 the said virgin. For which cause, and in memorial 

 thereof, the inhabitants of Sestos, and the parts there 

 adjoining, erected in that very place a stately monu- 

 ment, such as they call Heroum, dedicated in the 

 name of Jupiter and the Virgin, for that the eagle is 

 a bird consecrated unto that god *." 



To these notices of the phoenix we may append, 

 by way of further sample of fabulous ornithology, 

 some of the strange relations that have been delivered 

 by various writers touching another famous bird, the 

 bernacle or claik (Anas bernicla, WILLUGHBY, A. 

 leucopsis, TEMMINCK), a species of goose, which is not 

 uncommon during the autumn and winter in Britain 

 and Holland, but retires farther north in the sum- 

 mer to breed. It measures two feet and a half in 

 length, and is distinguished by its bill and feet, as 



* Holland's Pliny, x, 5, 



