VOL. XXIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 26g 



historians, has approved of his division, and accordingly ranked the phoenicopter 

 in the class of aquatic fissipedes. But that it is a water fowl all agree; Aristo- 

 phanes calls it Xt[ji,vx7oqy i.e. palustris; and Aldrovandus says of it, Avis est 

 aquas amans : not to mention others. 



Willoughby writes, that in severe weather, it comes over to the coast of 

 Provence, and is often taken about Martiquez, a sea-port town in that country, 

 and in Languedoc, and is frequently found about Montpelier: but he is igno- 

 rant whence it comes and where it is bred;* but says positively, that they do 

 not come from Flanders, where they are so far from being common, as some 

 allege, that none was ever seen there. 



Gesner says, *' circa lacus et paludes victitat," and that it feeds on periwinkles 

 and fish. By Dampier's account we learn, that they delight to keep together 

 in flocks, and feed in mud and ponds, or in places where there is not much 

 water; that they are very shy, and therefore it is hard to shoot them ; that they 

 build their nests in shallow ponds, where there is much mud, which they scrape 

 together, making little hillocks, like small islands, appearing out of the water, 

 a foot and a half from the bottom: they make the foundation of these hillocks 

 broad, bringing them up tapering to the top, where they leave a small hollow 

 pit to lay their eggs in. And when they either lay their eggs or hatch them, 

 they stand all the while, not on the hillock, but over it, with their legs on the 

 ground in the water, resting themselves against the hillock, and covering the 

 hollow nest upon it with their wings: for their legs are very long, and building 

 thus, as they do, on the ground, they could neither draw their legs conve- 

 niently into their nests, nor sit down on them otherwise than by resting their 

 whole bodies there, to, the prejudice of their eggs or young, were it not for 

 this curious and instinctive contrivance. They never lay more than three eggs, 

 and seldom fewer. The young ones cannot fly till they are almost full grown; 

 but will run prodigiously fast. Thus far Dampier. 



This beautiful and scarce bird was much esteemed by the Romans, and fre- 

 quently made use of in their sacrifices and entertainments. Thus Suetonius, 

 describing the exquisite sacrifices which were appointed by the mad emperor 

 Caligula, to be offered to himself as a divinity, says of them, " Hostiae erant 

 phoenicopteri, pavones, tetraones, numidicae, meleagrides, phasianae, quae ge- 

 neratim per singulos dies immolarentur." And he relates further, that this 

 emperor " pridie quam periret sacrificans respersus est phoenicopteri sanguine." 



That the tongue of this volatile was in great esteem for its excellent flavour, 

 will appear from the following quotations. We read in Pliny, that Apicius 



■J 

 • See the English Edition of his Works. 



if 



