270 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 7 J 6. 



said the tongue of this bird was a delicious and savory bit, " Phoenicopteri 

 linguam praecipui esse saporis Apicius docuit, uepotum omnium altissimus 

 gurges*" The poet Martial says, " Dat mihi penna rubens nomen: sed lingua 

 gulosis nostra sapit." 



And Juvenal, in that satire where he exposes the extravagant luxury and 

 gluttony of the Romans, mentions this fowl, among some others equally rare, 

 which they made use of in their feasts. 



" Et scythicae volucres et phoenicopterus ingens." 



We read in Suetonius how the emperor Vitellius had them often served at 

 his table, with a great many more varieties brought from the most distant parts 

 of the universe; " In hac scarorum jocinera, phasianorum cerebella, linguas 

 phoenicopterum, muraenarum lactes a Carpathio usque fretoque Hispaniae per 

 Navarchos ac Triremes petitarum commiscuit; hoc est, ab extremis imperii 

 finibus orientem versus et occidentem." And Heliogabalus, another of the 

 Roman emperors, as Lampridius writes, treated his courtiers with sumptuous 

 dishes made of the inwards and brains of phcenicopters : ** exhibuit palatinis 

 ingentes dapes extis et cerebellis phcenicopterorum refertas." 



The way to dress the phoenicopter, and how to make a sauce fit for it, we 

 may read in Apicius's book De Obsoniis et Condimentis, sen de Arte Coquinari^, 

 Lib. vi. c. 7. 



According to Bellonius, this bird is of the size of our curliew, which he 

 calls elorius. — Scaliger compares it to the heron, magnitudo ei ardeae. — Gesner 

 says it is as large as a ciconia or stork, or rather larger. — Aldrovandus writes, 

 " de magnitudine ejus ego nihil certi assero, quia avem nunquam vidi."— 

 Dampier. " The flamingo is a sort of large fowl much like the heron in 

 shape, but bigger and of a reddish colour." — Du Tertre. " Le flamand est un 

 oiseau gros comme une oye sauvage." — It has an extraordinary long neck ac- 

 cording to Mr. Willoughby. — Du Tertre. " II a le cou rouge, fort menu pour 

 la grandeur de 1' oyseau, et long d'une demy toise." 



Dr. Grew has obliged us with a very curious account of the bill of this bird, 

 for which he says it is most remarkable. The figure of each beak is truly hy- 

 perbolical: the upper jaw is ridged behind, before plain or flat, and pointed 

 like a sword, with the extremity bent a little downwards : within, it has an 

 angle or sharp ridge, which runs all along the middle, at the top of the hyper- 

 bole, not above a quarter of an inch high : the lower beak in the same place 

 above one inch high, hollow, and the margins strangely expanded inward, for 

 the breadth of above a quarter of an inch, and somewhat convexly. They are 

 both furnished with black teeth, as I call them from their use, of an unusual 

 figure, viz. slender, numerous, and parallel, as in ivory combs ; but also very 



