A BOOK OF BEASTS. 
189 
These do build them separate houses and chambers where each hath its own 
name and place. And know that of all the animals in the world bees alone do 
possess all things in common. The work of all is common to all ; all stores of 
fruit and all the young are common to all. They organise their people into 
communes. They elect their king — not by lot, but rather he who is most gentle 
in his manners, and most beautiful and vigorous in body, and of the most virtuous 
life, he is chosen king and lord over all. And though he be king, yet is he the 
more humble and of greater goodness and piety ; even his sting he uselh not 
unjustly. Though he be placed over all, yet his subjects do enjoy full freedom of 
action and of will, since their goodwill is such that all live together in love and 
concord, and none issueth from his house or chamber until his lord be departed, 
who leadeth his people whither he will. 
I cannot help thinking that this idyllic picture of a free com- 
munity living together in mutual trust and goodwill under the 
rule of a just king was written by Latini a Vadresse of the tyrants 
of his day — the Eccelini,the Obizzi, bloody and lawless oppressors, 
veritable scourges to the land of Italy — whom Dante saw in hell, 
immersed to their eyes, with Attila and Alexander, in the deepest 
part of the river of boiling blood. 
The following is an early and curious example, with tragic 
results, of the experimental method as applied to natural history. 
The Archbishop of Milan once put a crow’s egg in a stork’s nest. When the 
egg was hatched the male brought thither a number of female storks, who, when 
they saw the young bird so unlike their kind, straightway fell upon the mother bird 
and ignominiously slew her. 
The section on birds is a long one, and ends with the common 
or garden fowl. 
By the song of the cock we may know the hour of the night, and even as the 
cock, before it sings, beateth its body with its wings, so should a man before he 
prays flagellate himself, since none is without sin.* The housewife that wisheth to 
have good broods of chicks must tell her servants to lay down the eggs at the 
crescent moon and in odd numbers. 
After this ingenious piece of domestic economy the master 
proceeds to treat of the beasts (mammals). 
The lion, king of beasts, is of great strength and courage, and loveth man, 
and when he is most angry and fullest of evil will towards a man, the more 
quickly doth he pardon him if he throw himself on the ground and ask for mercy. 
The lion sleepeth with his eyes open, and traileth his tail over his footprints, when 
he goeth forth for food. 
The elephant never goeth aboard ship until the master thereof have promised 
to bring it back to the same country whence it started. If an elephant lie down 
[* This idea is expressed in the quaint poem on the cock, perhaps of the end 
of the fourteenth century, of which Dr. Neale, in his Medieval Hymns and 
Sequences, gives a charming translation. Here is the verse referred to : — 
“ Cock at midnight croweth loud. 
And in this delighteth ; 
But, before he crows, his sides 
With his wings he smiteth : 
So the priest at midnight, when 
, Him from rest he raiseth. 
Firstly doeth penitence. 
After that he praise th.” 
Ed. N. W.I 
