APPENDIX. 



EXTRACTS FROM THE WORK OF JOHN CAIUS 

 <DE RARIORUM ANIMALIUM ATQUE STIRPIUM 

 HISTORIA' (1570). 



OF THE SEA EAGLE. 



THE Haliaetos is that kind of Eagle, which seeks its prey 

 from the sea and lakes, whence it takes its name. It is 

 of the size of a Kite, having the head marked with white and 

 dusky lines, as in a badger; an Eagle's beak; eyes black in 

 the middle, golden in the outer circle ; a tongue almost like 

 that of man, except that at the root it has an appendage on 

 either side; the colour above that of a Goshawk, white below; 

 the throat marked with rufous spots, as is the belly; the 

 middle of the breast pure white ; the legs thick and scaly; 

 the foot with curved claws and blue ; four toes scaly above 

 for quite half of their length, fissured for the rest, rough on 

 the lower part and sharp for a firm hold ; and these so strong 

 that you can scarcely straighten them by any force when 

 bent. This bird is a preyer upon fishes, the water being cleft 

 by the shock of its body as it plunges, and on them it lives. 

 And though it lives on fishes, yet it is cloven on each foot, 

 not webbed on one as the vulgar think. Giraldus Cambrensis 

 in his book on the Topography of Ireland, when he treats of 

 unequally formed birds, calls this the Aurifrisius 1 ; and writes 

 in common with the vulgar that it has one foot free-toed and 

 armed with claws, the other closed (with webs). The length 

 of the wing surpasses that of the body, for it extends to two 

 Roman feet and eleven inches. In this affair an opinion has 

 grown up among our common people in Britain, that such a 

 natural power exists in this bird that any fish which it sees turns 

 upwards on its back as soon as possible and rises to the surface 



1 Aurifrisius must be the Latinized form of the old French name 

 'Orfraie' which, like Osprey, is a corruption of Ossifraga. 



T. 13 



