Of some computation of days, and deductions of one part of the A digression of the wisdom of God in the site and motion of the Concerning the vulgar opinion, that the earth was slenderly pe THE SEVENTH ВоOK; the particular part concluded. Of popular and tenets, chiefly historical and some deduced from the Holy Scriptures That the forbidden fruit was an apple Chap. 10. That John the Evangelist should not die Chap. 11. Of some others more briefly.. Chap. 12. Of the cessation of oracles Chap. 13. Of the death of Aristotle Chap. 14. Of the wish of Philoxenus to have the neck of a crane Chap. 15. Of the lake Asphaltites Chap. 16. Of divers other relations: viz. of the woman that conceived in bath; of Crassus that never laughed but once; that our Savio Chap. 17. Of some others: viz. of the poverty of Belisarius; of fluctus dec manus, or the tenth wave; of Parisatis that poisoned Statira b one side of a knife; of the woman fed with poison, that shou have poisoned Alexander; of the wandering Jew; of pope Joan of friar Bacon's brazen head that spoke; of Epicurus Chap. 18. More briefly of some others: viz. that the army of Xerxes dran whole rivers dry; that Hannibal eat through the Alps with vinegar of Archimedes his burning the ships of Marcellus; of the Fab that were all slain; of the death of Eschylus; of the cities Tarsus and Anchiale built in one day; of the great ship Syracusi PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA. THE FIFTH BOOK: THE PARTICULAR PART CONTINUED. OF MANY THINGS QUESTIONABLE AS THEY ARE COMMONLY DESCRIBED IN PICTURES; OF MANY POPULAR CUSTOMS, ETC. CHAPTER I. Of the Picture of the Pelican. AND first, in every place we meet with the picture of the pelican, opening her breast with her bill, and feeding her young ones with the blood distilled from her. Thus is it set forth not only in common signs, but in the crest and scutcheon of many noble families; hath been asserted by many holy writers, and was an hieroglyphick of piety and pity among the Egyptians; on which consideration they spared them at their tables.1 1 And first, &c.] These singular birds are said to fish in companies; they form a circle on the water, and having by the flapping of their huge wings, driven the terrified fish towards the centre, they suddenly dive all at once as by consent, and soon fill their immense pouches with their prey. In order subsequently to disgorge the contents, in feeding their young, they have only to press the pouch on their breast. This operation may very probably have given rise to the fable, that the pelican opens her breast to nourish her young. As to its hieroglyphical import, Horapollo says that it was used among the Egyptians as an emblem of folly; on account of the little care it takes to deposit its eggs in a safe place. He relates that it buries them in a hole; that the natives, observing the place, cover it with dry cow's dung, to which they set fire. The old birds immediately endeavouring to extinguish the fire with their wings, get them burnt, and so are easily caught.-Horap. Hierogl. cura Pauw, 4to. Traj. ad Rh. 1727, pp. 67, 68. Notwithstanding, upon enquiry we find no mention hereof in ancient zoographers, and such as have particularly discoursed upon animals, as Aristotle, Ælian, Pliny, Solinus, and many more; who seldom forget proprieties of such a nature, and have been very punctual in less considerable records. Some ground hereof I confess we may allow, nor need we deny a remarkable affection in pelicans toward their young; for Elian, discoursing of storks, and their affection toward their brood, whom they instruct to fly, and unto whom they redeliver up the provision of their bellies, concludeth at last, that herons and pelicans do the like. As for the testimonies of ancient fathers, and ecclesiastical writers, we may more safely conceive therein some emblematical, than any real story: so doth Eucherius confess it to be the emblem of Christ. And we are unwilling literally to receive that account of Jerom, that perceiving her young ones destroyed by serpents, she openeth her side with her bill, by the blood whereof they revive and return unto life again. By which relation they might indeed illustrate the destruction of man by the old serpent, and his restorement by the blood of Christ: and in this sense we shall not dispute the like relations of Austin, Isidore, Albertus, and many more; and under an emblematical intention, we accept it in coat-armour. As for the hieroglyphick of the Egyptians, they erected the same upon another consideration, which was parental affection; manifested in the protection of her young ones, when her nest was set on fire. For as for letting out her blood, it was not the assertion of the Egyptians, but seems translated unto the pelican from the vulture, as Pierius hath plainly delivered. Sed quòd pelicanum (ut etiam aliis plerisque persuasum est) rostro pectus dissecantem pingunt, ita ut suo sanguine filios alat, ab Egyptiorum historia valde alienum est, illi enim vulturem tantùm id facere tradiderunt. And lastly, as concerning the picture, if naturally examined, and not hieroglyphically conceived, it containeth many improprieties, disagreeing almost in all things from the true and proper description. For, whereas it is commonly set forth green or yellow, in its proper colour it is inclining to white, excepting the extremities or tops of the wing feathers, which are brown. It is described in the bigness of a hen, CHAP. I.] OF THE PICTURE OF THE PELICAN. 3 whereas it approacheth and sometimes exceedeth the magnitude of a swan.2 It is commonly painted with a short bill; whereas that of the pelican3 attaineth sometimes the length of two spans. The bill is made acute or pointed at the end, whereas, it is flat and broad,4 though somewhat inverted at the extreme. It is described like fissipedes, or birds which have their feet or claws divided: whereas it is palmipedous, or fin-footed, like swans and geese, according to the method of nature in latirostrous or flat-billed birds, which being generally swimmers, the organ is wisely contrived unto the action, and they are framed with fins or oars upon their feet, and therefore they neither light, nor build on trees, if we except cormorants, who make their nests like herons. Lastly, there is one part omitted more remarkable than any other; that is, the chowle or crop adhering unto the lower side of the bill, and so descending by the throat; a bag or sachel very observable, and of a capacity almost beyond credit; which, notwithstanding, this animal could not want; for therein it receiveth oysters, cockles, scollops, and other testaceous animals, which being not able to break, it retains them until they open, and vomiting them up, takes out the meat contained. This is that part preserved for a rarity, and wherein (as Sanctius delivers) in one dissected, a negro child was found. A possibility there may be of opening and bleeding their breast, for this may be done by the uncous and pointed extremity of their bill; and some probability also that they sometimes do it for their own relief, though not for their 2 whereas it approacheth, &c.] This bird, says Buffon, would be the largest of water-birds, were not the body of the albatross more thick, and the legs of the flamingo so much longer. It is sometimes six feet long from point of bill to end of tail, and twelve feet from wing-tip to wing-tip. 3 that of the pelican.] This description of the authors agrees (per omnia) with that live pellican, which was to bee seen in King-street, Westminster, 1647, from whence (doubtles) the author maketh this relation ἐξ αὐτοψίᾳ.—Wr. 4 flat and broad.] From hence itt is that many ancients call this bird the shoveller: and the Greeks derive πελεκὰν from πελεκάν, to wound as with an axe, which suites with the shape of his beake in length and breadthe like a rooting axe, per omnia.—Wr. But the term shoveller is now applied to a species of duck; Anas clypeata. young ones; that is, by nibbling and biting themselves on the itching part of their breast, upon fulness or acrimony of blood. And the same may be better made out, if (as some relate) their feathers on that part are sometimes observed to be red and tinctured with blood.5 CHAPTER II. Of the Picture of Dolphins. THAT dolphins are crooked, is not only affirmed by the hand of the painter, but commonly conceived their natural and proper figure, which is not only the opinion of our times, but seems the belief of elder times before us. For, beside the expressions of Ovid and Pliny, the portraits in some ancient coins are framed in this figure, as will appear in some thereof in Gesner, others in Goltsius, and Lævinus Hulsius in his description of coins from Julius Cæsar unto Rodolphus the second. Notwithstanding, to speak strictly, in their natural figure they are straight, nor have their spine convexed, or more considerably embowed, than sharks, porpoises, whales, and 6 5 A possibility, &c.] This paragraph was first added in 6th edition. 6 porpoises.] Reade porkpisces. The porkpisce (that is the dolphin) hath his name from the hog hee resembles in convexity and curvitye of his backe, from the head to the tayle: nor is hee otherwise curbe, then as a hog is except that before a storme, hee tumbles just as a hog runs. That which I once saw, cutt up in Fish-street, was of this forme and above five foote longe: his skin not skaly, but smoothe and black, like bacon in the chimney; and his bowels in all points like a hog: and yf instead of his four fins you imagine four feete, hee would represent a black hog (as it were) sweal'd alive.- Wr. This creature, so graphically described by the dean, is probably the common dolphin,—Delphinus Delphis; but the porpoise is a different animal, Delphis phocana, now constituted a distinct genus. Ray, however, says that the porpoise is the dolphin of the ancients. The follow ing passage from his Philosophical Letters, p. 46, corroborates the dean's proposed etymology. It occurs in a letter to Dr. Martin Lister, May 7, 1669. "Totum corpus copiosâ et densâ pinguedine (piscatores blubber vocant), duorum plus minus digitorum crassitie undique integebatur, immediate sub cute, et supra carnem musculosam sita, ut in porcis; ob quam rationem, et quod porcorum grunnitum quadanter.us imitetur, porpesse,—i. e. porcum piscem, dictum eum existimo." |