BOOK II. 



OF RAPACIOUS BIRDS. 



CHAP. I. 



OF RAPACIOUS JBIKUS IN GENERAL.' 



THEf.E seems to obtain a general resemblance in all the class- 

 es of nature. As among quadrupeds, a part were seen to live 



I The auimals of this order are iUl carnivorous : they associate in pnira, 

 liiilil their nests in the most lofty situations, and produce generally four 

 young- ones at a brood: and tlie female is mostly larger than the mala. 

 They consist of vultures, eagles, hawks, and owls. 



Clusius has described tlio same bird under the name of gallus gallinaceui 

 peregrinus, and of cygnus cucullaius, which latter e])itliet is derived from 

 some fancied resemblance between the membrane covering the bird's heiid, 

 to the capote, or cowl, of a monk. He describes it as having the bill oblong, 

 thick, and crooked, yellow at the base, bluish in the middle, and black at 

 the "Xtremity. The body, according to his statement, was covered only 

 with some short feathers, and four or five black quUls were in the place of 

 wiugs. Tlie liiuder part of the body was very fat ; and instead of tail there 

 were foiu- or five ash-coloured and frizzled feathers. The legs were rather 

 eliort, and of an equal circumference tltfoughout, covered with sailes of a 

 yellowish brown, from the knee to the toes. Tlie same writer adds, that in 

 the stomach of these birds were foimd stones of different forms and sizes, 

 which, probably, they were iu the habit of swallo^ving, like the granivoroua 

 birds to which systematists have associated them. 



Tliis description has been copied by Nieremberg ; and Bontius, who has 

 devoted to the dodo the seventeenth chapter of liis " Natural and Medical 

 History of the East Indies," adds, that it has lai-ge black eyes, mandibles, 

 the aperture of which is very ample, a curved neck, and a body so clumsy . 

 and fat, that its walk is very heavy. 



The description of Willoughby differs but little from that of Clusius and 

 Bontius ; but he adds, that he himself beheld the spoils of this bird in the 

 museum of Sir John Tradescaut. 



Herbert, in his travels, tells us, that the dodo weighed at least fifty pounds, 

 and that the stomach was hot enough to digest stones. The weight would 

 appear to be exaggerated, and the pretended faculty of digesting stones is 

 utterly inadniissilile. 



