MEDIAEVAL NATURAL HISTORY--BIRDS AND FISHES In following out his plan of describing the productions of each element before considering the next in order, Bartholomew was led to consider air and its products early in his scheme. Accordingly his twelfth book is devoted to birds, and his thirteenth to the inhabitants of the waters. There is hardly any reason in these books for omitting any part more than another except space, but the editor hopes that those chosen will put the reader in possession of a key to the more common allusions in pre-Restoration literature. When the editor spoke of the wholesale way in which our author is conveyed by Elizabethan poets, he had in mind this and the following chapters. A single example will show this. Let the reader compare the account of the peacock with the following stanza from Chester's "Love's Martyr": "The proud sun-braving peacocke with his feathers, Walkes all along, thinking himself a king, And with his voice prognosticates all weathers, Although, God knows, but badly he doth sing; But when he looks downe to his base blacke feete, He droopes and is asham'd of things unmeet." Our author's knowledge of birds is largely derived--the authentic from Aristotle; the legendary from the Fathers, Ambrose, Austin, Basil, and Gregory,--the Gloss,--and from Pliny. Some of these legends seem to be pointed at in the Hebrew Scriptures. Thus Ps. ciii. 5, "Thy youth is renewed like the eagle's," either gave rise to, or refers to, the tradition quoted in our account of the eagle: and likewise Job xxxviii. 41, and Ps. cxlvii. 9, seem to be responsible for the tradition in the account of the raven. It would be interesting to learn whether any independent traditions of this nature exist. It is worth pointing out that our author has contributed to the "Gesta Romanorum" several stories. The "wild tale," as Warton calls it, of the elephant and the maidens, as well as the story of "the storke wreker of avouterie" mentioned by Chaucer in the "Assemblie of Foules," and derived from Neckham, and the similar tale of the lioness, obtained their wide circulation through the popularity of Bartholomew's book. It would be an interesting task to trace these tales to their origin, but this is neither the place nor the time to do so; and the editor similarly leaves to lovers of Shakespeare the pleasure of proving to themselves his intimate acquaintance with the book. In the part of the chapter quoted from the thirteenth book, the editor has tried to get together some of those stories which impressed people's minds most. Such a one is the tale of the remora. We remember Jonson's use of it in the "Poetaster": "Death, I am seized here By a land remora; I cannot stir Nor move, but as he pleases." Other tales remind us of Olaus Magnus, and some of them are plainly Eastern.