UNNATURAL HISTORY 149 
kinds of absurd stories regarding them. For example, 
it was universally believed that kingfishers laid their 
eggs on the sea, which kindly kept calm for a fortnight 
to enable them to incubate successfully. 
The hoopoe was supposed to contain within it a 
stone, which, when placed upon the breast of a sleeping 
man, compelled him to reveal all the crimes he had 
committed. The pelican was said to feed its young 
with its blood, a supposition which any one could have 
disproved by casually watching the breeding operations 
of this bird. The death-song of the swan was another 
medizval myth which has persisted even to the present 
day, for there still exist people who believe that a swan 
when it is about to die, sings most sweetly. 
Not very long ago men imagined that to look a toad 
full in the face meant instant death! Even in this 
twentieth century there are plenty of writers of un- 
natural history. I remember reading, not many years 
ago, in an English daily paper, of a girl who, when she 
cried, shed the ray florets of daisies (the paper called 
them “ petals”), instead of tears. The sea-serpent con- 
tinually crops up, but we must pass over this important 
creature ; we will not insult him by crowding him into 
the middle of a chapter. 
Nowadays, most children are instructed in the rudi- 
ments of zoology, and are taught to use their reasoning 
faculties, so those who manufacture unnatural history 
have to proceed far more warily than they used to. 
They usually confine themselves to stories of unusual 
intelligence on the part of some animal. 
There is, for example, the dear old “chestnut” about 
