P H A 
35 
P H A 
knowledging him for his fon. The youth boldly afked 
thediredtion of the chariot of the fun for one day. His 
father, grieved and furprifed at this demand, ufed all his 
arguments to dilfuade him from the ralh attempt; but 
all was in vain; and, being by his oath reduced tofubmit 
to his obftinacy, entrufted him with the reins, after he 
had diredted him how to ufe them. The young adven¬ 
turer was, however, foon fenfible of his madnefs. He was 
unable to guide the fiery fteeds; and, loofing the reins, Ju¬ 
piter, to prevent his confuming the heavens and earth, 
ftruck him with a thunderbolt, and hurled him from his 
feat into the river Eridanus, or Po. His fillers Phae- 
thufa, Lambetia, and Phoebe, lamenting his lot's upon its 
banks, were changed by the gods into black poplar-trees, 
and Cycnus king of Liguria, alfo grieving at his fate, was 
transformed into a fwan. 
The poets fay, that, while Phaeton was driving the cha¬ 
riot of his father, the blood of the Ethiopians was dried 
up, and their fkin became black; a colour which is ftill 
preferved among the greateft part of the inhabitants of 
the torrid zone. The territories of Libya were alfo, they 
tell us, parched up, on account of their too great vici¬ 
nity to the fun ; and ever fince, Africa, unable to recover 
her original verdure and fruitfulnefs, has exhibited a 
fandy country and uncultivated wafte. According to 
thofe who explain this poetical fable, Phaeton was a Li¬ 
gurian prince, who ftudied aftronomy, and in wbofeage 
the neighbourhood of the Po was vifited with uncommon 
heats. 
The horfes of the Sun are called Phaetontis eqni, either 
becaufe they were guided by Phaeton, or from the Greek 
word (paE^wr, which exprefles the fplendor and lufire of 
that luminary. Virg. JEn. v. Hcfiocl. T/ieug. Ovid. Met . i. 
fab. 17. Hygin.fab. 156. 
PH A'ETON,/. [fo called in allufion to Phaeton, the 
fabled driver of the chariot of the fun.] A kind of lofty 
open chaife with four wheels : 
Like Nero, he’s a fidler, charioteer, 
Or drives his phaeton in female guife. Young. 
At Blagrave’s, once upon a time. 
There flood a phaeton lublime : 
Unfullied by the dully road. 
Its wheels with recent crimfon glow’d. Way ton's Phaeton. 
PH A'ETON, f. in natural hiltory, the Tropic-bird ; 
a genus of aves, of the order anferes. Generic charac¬ 
ters—Bill lharp-edged, ftraight, pointed ; the gape of the 
mouth reaching beyond; noftrils oblong; hind toe 
turned-forwards. Of this genus there are only three 
fpecies: they inhabit the South Sea, particularly between 
the tropics, and are often feen upon the backs of por- 
poifes. In all of them the bill is compreffed, and bent a 
little downwards, the lower mandible angulated. The 
feet have four toes, which are palmated. The tail is cu¬ 
neiform, and diftinguilhed by the great length of the two 
intermediate feathers, 
We have feen birds travel from north to fouth, and 
with boundlefs courfe traverfe all the climates of the 
globe: others we find confined to the polar regions, the 
lalt children of expiring nature, invaded by the horrors 
of eternal ice. The prefent, on the contrary, feems to 
attend the car of the fun under the burningzone, defined 
by the tropics: flying perpetually amidft the tepid 
zephyrs, without ftraying beyond the verge of the ecliptic, 
it informs the navigator of his approach to the flaming 
barrier of the folar track. Hence it has been called the 
tropic-bird, becaufe it refides within the limits of the 
torrid zone. 
1. Phaeton setliereus, the common tropic-bird: white; 
back, rump, and wing-coverts, llreaked with black ; the 
two middle tail-feathers black at the bale ; bill red. It 
meafures about thirty-four inches to the tip of the long 
tail-feathers. The body is about the fize of a common 
pigeon. The bill is more than three inches long ; and 
near the bafe of the upper mandible begins a ftreak of 
black, which curves round the upper part of the eye, and 
ends a little way behind in a flraight diredlion. The tail 
confills of fourteen feathers, twelve of which are of a 
moderate length, the longeft of them about five inches 
and a half long, and Ihorter as they proceed outwards; 
hence the fliape is cuneiform; but the two middle ones 
meafure above twenty inches, and finilh in a point; the 
colour of all of them is white, except the long ones, which 
are black for one fourth of the way from the bafe : the 
legs are of a dulky yellow ; claws black. 
Though the tropic-bird feems confined within the tro¬ 
pic circles, we are not to conclude that it never llrays 
voluntarily, or is driven, beyond them; for there are in - 
fiances to prove that it will wander as far as the latitude 
of 47J. It is however fo generally found within the tro¬ 
pical limits, that the fight of this bird alone is fufficient 
to inform the mariner of a very near approach to, if not 
his entrance therein. It has alfo been thought to portend 
the contiguity of land; but this has often proved falla¬ 
cious, as it is not unfrequently found at very great dil- 
tances from any fliore. The flight of this bird is often 
to a prodigious height; but it is at other times feen, along 
with the man-of-war bird, the pelican, booby, and other 
birds, attending the flying fifh as they endeavour to 
efcape from the (hark, porpoife, albicore, bonito, &c. 
They are fometimes obferved to reft on the furfaceof the 
fea; and have been feen, in calm weather, upon the backs of 
the drowfy tortoifes, fupinely floating in the fea, fo that 
they have been eafily taken by the long boat manned. 
On fliore they will perch on trees; and are laid to breed 
in the woods, on the ground beneath them. They have 
been met with on the iflands of St. Helena, Afcenfion, 
Mauritius, New Holland, and various places in the South 
Seas; but in no place fo numerous as at Palmerfton 
Ifland, where thefe birds, as well as the Pelecanus aquilus, 
were in fuch plenty, that the trees were abfolutely loaded 
with them, and fo tame that they fullered themlelves to 
be taken off the boughs with the hand. At Otaheite, 
and in the Friendly Illes, the natives give them the names 
of haingoo, and loulaiee; and, as they filed the long tail- 
feathers every year, the inhabitants of thefe iflands colledt 
and make ule of them by way of ornament; they are 
worn in the caps of the Sandwich Iflanders, and in va¬ 
rious other parts of their drels; but in none more con- 
fpicuous than in the mourning garment of Otaheite, in 
which iflands numbers are picked up in the mountainous 
parts, where it alfo breeds. The flelh cannot be called 
good, but was found fuflaciently acceptable to thofe who 
had long been confined to fait provifions, and in which 
circumftance the failors did not defpife it. 
( 3 . A variety fomewhat lefs. The bill is cinereous at 
the bafe, the reft of the length yellowilh : the plumage 
in general is of a filvery white; it has the black crefcent 
round the eye, as in the other; and the fcapulars, like 
that, marked with black ; the legs yellowilh; bafe of the 
toes the fame ; the reft of the length, the webs and claws, 
black. 
7. Differs merely in having the plumage of ayellowifh 
white, inftead of a pure filvery one as in f 3 . Thefe differ¬ 
ences may perhaps arife from age, if not the diftinguilh- 
ing mark of fex. 
2. Phaeton melanorhynchus, the black-billed tropic- 
bird : ftreaked black and white, beneath white; bill 
black; quill-feathers tipt with white, tail-feathers with 
black. It is found in Palmerfton and the Turtle iflands; 
and is fmaller than the preceding, being only twenty- 
inches long. There is a fine black ftreak before and 
behind the eyes; the front is white. 
3. Phaeton phoenicurus, the red-tailed tropic-bird ; 
roly flelh-colour; bill and two middle tail-feathers red. 
The length of this fpecies is two feet ten inches, of which 
the two long tail-feathers alone meafure one foot nine. 
The bill is three inches and a half in length, and of a 
deep red : the plumage white, with a tinge of elegant 
pale rofe-colour; the crefcent over the eyes as in the 
othersj 
