2 9 4 



SEA FABLES EXPLAINED. 



fall upon the land are transformed into flying birds. And you will be 

 still more astonished to learn that in the British seas a bird like a 

 duck, of a species unknown to you, hangs by the beak to fragments of 



FIG. 35. THE TREE THAT WHEN ROTTEN PRODUCES WORMS WHICH ARE 



DEVELOPED INTO LIVING AND FLYING DUCKS. After Claude Duret, 1605. 



old and rotten wood, the remains of wrecked vessels, from which it 

 ultimately becomes detached, and flies away in quest of the fishes 

 which are its natural food. We have seen these birds. The Gascons 

 who live on the sea-coast call them Crabrans. The Britons call them 



