2G1 AMMOMANES DESERTI, AMMOMANES ISABELLINA, 



Of course the term " isabelline," and its origin, is well known to 

 ornithologists ; but for the sake of those who are not, it might be of use to 

 mention that the lady who gave rise to the epithet was Clara Eugenia 

 Isabella, daughter of Philip II., King of Spain, and Isabella of France. She 

 was Infanta of Spain and wife of the unfrocked Cardinal Albert, Archbishop 

 of Toledo, youngest of the three surviving brothers of the Emperor Rudolph, 

 and married by the Pope himself (officiating in his triple crown) at Ferrara, 

 1598, by proxy. 



This colour (in French, " isabelle ") is a brownish yellow — the hue 

 of unwashed linen, the Infanta having made a vow, in 1601, not to change 

 her under-garment until her husband captured Ostend. Though the siege 

 began at the above date, the town was not taken till 1604, when the linen of 

 which this portion of her clothing was composed had assumed the above- 

 named hue (vide Webster's Dictionary). 



In the 'United Netherlands,' by John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., vol. iv. 

 pp. 72-84, she fires ofF " a forty -pounder, with her own serene fingers, to 

 encourage the artillerymen," and appears "magnificent in ruff and farthingale 

 and brocaded petticoat, attended by a cavalcade of Ladies of Honour in 

 gorgeous attire." No mention is made here of the vow, or of the condition 

 of her clothing, which, however, had not then (1601) changed to what it 

 became in 1604 ; for not till that time was she released from her vow, not- 

 withstanding her Pilgrimages to our Lady of Hall. 



I here record my thanks to Mrs. Bury PaUiser and Messrs. Sampson 

 Low & Son, and Marston, for permission to copy the portrait of this Arch- 

 duchess from the ' History of Lace,' which I have done, thinking that the 

 features of the lady whose name appears so frequently in the pages of science 

 throughout the world must be interesting. Great heiress as^she was (for 

 she had the Low Countries for her dower), and granddaughter also of the 

 Emperor Charles V., these facts are less known than the isabelline colour to 

 the name of which she gave origin. 



