188 History of. Nature. [BooK X. 



of the long Robe (Toga), who wrote of this Bird ; and he 

 reporteth, that no Man was ever known to see him feeding : 

 that in Arabia he is sacred to the Sun : that he liveth 660 

 Years: and when he groweth old, he builds a Nest with the 

 Twigs of Cassia (Cinnamon) and Frankincense Trees : and 

 when he hath filled it with Spices, he dieth upon it. He 

 saith, also, that out of his Bones and Marrow there breedeth 

 at first, as it were, a little Worm, from which proceeds a 

 young Bird ; and the first Thing this young one does, is to 

 perform the Funeral Rites of the former Phoenix, and then 

 to carry away the whole Nest to the City of the Sun, near 

 Panchaea, and to lay it down upon the Altar. The same 

 Manilius affirmeth, that the Revolution of the great Year 

 agreeth with the Life of this Bird ; in which Year the same 

 Signification of the Times and Stars return again to their 

 first Points : and that this should begin at Noon, that very 

 Day when the Sun entereth the Sign Aries. And by his 

 saying, the Year of that Revolution was by him showed 

 when P. Licinius and M . Cornelius were Consuls. Cornelius 

 Valerianus writeth, that while Q. Plautius and Sex. Papinius 

 were Consuls, the Phcenix flew into Egypt. He was con- 

 veyed to the City (Rome) in the Time that Claudius the 

 Prince was Censor, in the eight hundredth Year of the City, 

 and was showed openly in the Assembly of the People, as 

 appeareth in the Public Records ; but no Man ever made 

 any doubt that this was a counterfeit Phoenix. 



CHAPTER III. 

 Of Eagles.* 



OF all the Birds we know, the Eagles excel both in 

 Honour and Strength. There are six Kinds of them. The 



1 In his account of the Eagles, when Pliny does not follow Aristotle, 

 he may have been chiefly led by the authority of the books of the 

 Augurs; to whom the appearance of all strange birds was officially 

 reported, and whose office led them to study minutely their habits. The 

 absence of description in their writings is explained by the fact, that their 

 books contained coloured figures of all the species that came within their 



