56 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



Lord of the World and Emperor, receive with 

 devotion this book of Michael Scot, that it may be 

 a grace unto thy head and a chain about thy neck' * 

 It will always be matter of doubt whether in this 

 address Scot appealed to a taste for natural history 

 already formed in his pupil before he left Palermo, 

 or whether the interest subsequently shown by this 

 monarch in studying the habits of animals was 

 awakened by the perusal of these two volumes. In 

 any case they must have done not a little to guide 

 both his interest and his researches. The chroniclers 

 tell us of Frederick's elephant, which was sent to 

 Cremona, of the cameleopard, the camels and 

 dromedaries, the lions, leopards, panthers, and rare 

 birds which the royal menagerie contained, and of 

 a white bear which, being very uncommon, formed 

 one of the gifts presented by the Emperor on an 

 important occasion. We hear too that Frederick, 

 not content with gathering such rarities under his 

 own observation, entered upon more than one curious 

 experiment in this branch of science. Desiring to 

 learn the origin of language he had some children 

 brought up, so Salimbene tells us, beyond hearing 

 of any spoken tongue. In the course of another 

 inquiry he caused the surgeon's knife to be ruth- 

 lessly employed upon living men that he might lay 

 bare the secrets and study the process of digestion. 

 If these experiments do not present the moral 

 character of the Emperor in a very attractive light, 

 they may at least serve to show how keenly he was 

 interested in the study of nature. 



This interest indeed went so far as to lead 



1 There is an evident reference to Prov. i. 9 in these words which 

 accords well with Scot's usual style. 



