256 DUCKS, GEESE, SWANS, AND PELICANS. 



does not arrive in ttese immense flocks. It is then shot from a 

 boat like other water-fowl. 



The Black Scoter makes but a poor figure on aristocratic tables. 

 Its flesh, which is by no means tender, retains a very decided marshy 

 flavour. In former times it was much sought after, but not exactly 

 for its culinary qualities. The reason this bird was shown such 

 preference was because people were permitted to eat it in Lent in 

 place of fish. 



The singular notions on which the Church of Rome foxmded 

 this toleration — a toleration, however, which still exists in full 

 force even at the present day — is as follows. The councils of the 

 twelfth century permitted both the clergy and laity to eat Black 

 Scoters during Lent because it was a generally- accepted idea, 

 founded on the writings of Aristotle, that these birds were not 

 produced from an egg, but had a vegetable origin. The learned of 

 the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, seeing large flocks of these 

 birds suddenly appear, while nothing was known whence they 

 came, indulged in all kinds of conjectures to explain this mysterious 

 fact. They attributed to them origins which were marvellous ; 

 one conjecturing that the feathery appearance in the ciliated ten- 

 tacles of certain moUusks which inhabit the barnacle shell changed 

 into Black Scoters ; others imagined that these birds proceeded 

 from the wood of rotten fir-trees which had been long floating 

 about in the sea, or even from the fungi and marine mosses which 

 cHng to the dibris of wrecked ships ; others, again, went so far 

 as to assert that the north of Scotland, and especially the Orkney 

 Isles, produced a tree the fruit of which, falling into the sea, 

 developed into the bird which was called Anser arboreus, in order 

 to commemorate its origin : this bird they imagined was the Black 

 Scoter. 



The naturalists who gave expression to these transcendental 

 views might certainly boast that they had Aristotle on their side ; 

 for this distinguished philosopher believed in the spontaneous 

 generation of various kinds of animals. He asserted, for instance, 

 that rats sprung from decayed vegetables, and that bees proceeded 

 from the carcass of an ox. Who, for instance, is unacquainted 

 with the fine episode of the fourth book of Virgil's Georgics, 

 where this poetic fiction is related in beautiful verse? 



