Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/492

Rh 470 S C O S C O in the Theatrum Chimicum, and containing more alchemy than astronomy, the sun and moon being taken as the images of gold and silver ; De Chiromantia, an opuscule often published in the 15th century; and, perhaps best known of all, De Physiognomia et de Hominis Procreatione, which saw no fewer than eighteen editions between 1477 and 1660. This treatise is divided into three books, of which the first deals with generation according to the doctrine of Aristotle and Galen, the second with the signs by which the character and faculties of individuals may be determined from observation of different parts of the body. The Physiognomia (which also exists in an Italian translation) and the Super Auctorem Spherx expressly bear that they were undertaken at the request of the emperor Frederick. To the above list should be added certain treatises in manuscript, De Signis Planetarum ; Contra Averrkoem in Meteor a ; Notitia Convinctionis Mundi Ter- restris cum Ccelesti, et de Definitione utriusque Mundi ; De PraRsagiis Stellarum et Elementaribus. Michael is said to have foretold (after the double-tongued manner of the ancient oracles) the place of Frederick's death, which took place in 1250. The Italian tradition makes Scot die in Sicily not long afterwards, stating that he foretold the manner of his own death. Jourdain is inclined to agree with this approximate date, observing that Scot is spoken of by Albert the Great as if he were already dead, and that Vincent of Beauvais (d. c. 1268) quotes him with the epithet "vetus." But the generally received tradition makes him return by way of England (where he was re- ceived with much honour by Edward I.) to his native country. The ordinary account gives 1291 as the date of Scot's death. According to one tradition he was buried at Holme Cultram in Cumberland ; according to another, which Sir Walter Scott has followed in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, in Melrose Abbey. In the notes to that poem, of which the opening of the wizard's tomb forms the most striking episode, Scott gives an interesting ac- count of the various exploits attributed by popular belief to the great magician. "In the south of Scotland any work of great labour and antiquity is ascribed either to the agency of Auld Michael, of Sir William Wallace, or the devil." He used to feast his friends with dishes brought by spirits from the royal kitchens of France and Spain and other lands. His embassy to France alone on the back of a coal-black demon steed is also celebrated, in which he brought the French monarch to his feet by the effects which followed the repeated stamping of his horse's hoof. Other powers and exploits are narrated in Folengo's Macaronic poem of Merlin Coccaius (1595). But Michael's reputation as a magician was already fixed in the age im- mediately following his own. He appears in the Inferno of Dante (canto xx. 115-117) among the magicians and soothsayers " Quell" altro, cho ne' fianchi e cosi poco, Michele Scotto fu ; che verainente Delle magiche frode seppe il giuoco. " He is represented in the same character by Boccaccio, and is severely arraigned by John Pico de Mirandola in his work against astrology, while Naud6 finds it necessary to defend his good name in his Apologie pour les grands per- sonnar/es faussement accuses de magie. SCOT, REGINALD (c. 1538-1599), was the son of Richard, third son of Sir John Scot of Scotshall, Smeeth (Kent), studied at Hart Hall in Oxford, and afterwards lived in studious retirement at Smeeth, dying in 1599. He was the author of a very remarkable book, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, the object of which was to put an end to the cruel persecution of witches, by showing that " there will be found among our Witches only tioo sorts ; the one sort being such by imputation, as so thought of by others (and these are abused and not abusers), the other by acceptation, as being willing so to be accounted, and these be meer Coseners." This thesis is worked out in sixteen books, with great learning and acuteness, in a spirit of righteous indignation against the witchmongers. Scot was far in advance of his time, and his book, of which the first edition appeared in 1584, was burned by order of King James I. The book is still interesting, not only as having anticipated Bekker by a century, but for the great mass of curious details as to every branch of so-called witchcraft which it contains. It also takes up natural magic and conjuring at considerable length (bk. xiii.), and contains an argument against " alchymistry " (bk. xiv.). Scot also published in 1574 A perfite Platforme of a Hoppe Garden (3d ed. 1578), which is noteworthy as having originated the cultivation of the hop in England. A second edition of the Discoverie appeared in 1651 and a third in 1665 ; the latter con- tained nine new chapters, prefixed by an anonymous hand to bk. xv. of the Discoverie, and the addition of a second book to the "Discourse concerning Angels and Spirits." See B. Nicholson's Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft, London, 1886. SCOTER, a word of doubtful origin, perhaps a variant of " Scout," one of the many local names shared in com- mon by the GUILLEMOT (vol. xi. p. 262) and the RAZORBILL (vol. xx. p. 302), or perhaps primarily connected with COOT (vol. vi. p. 341 ), x the English name of the Anas nigra of Linnaeus, which with some allied species has been justifiably placed in a distinct genus, (Edemia (often misspelt Oidemia) a name coined in reference to the swollen appearance of the base of the bill. The Scoter is also very generally known around the British coasts as the "Black Duck" from the male being, with the exception of a stripe of orange that runs down the ridge of the bill, wholly of that colour. In the representative American form, (E. ameri- cana, the protuberance at the base of the bill, black in the European bird, is orange as well. Of all Ducks the Scoter has the most marine habits, keeping the sea in all weathers, and rarely resorting to land except for the purpose of breed- ing. Even in summer small flocks of Scoters may generally be seen in the tideway at the mouth of any of the larger British rivers or in mid-channel, while in autumn and winter these flocks are so increased as to number thousands of individuals, and the water often looks black with them. A second species, the Velvet-Duck, (E. fusca, of much larger size, distinguished by a white spot under each eye and a white bar on each wing, is far less abundant than the for- mer, but examples of it are occasionally to be seen in com- pany with the commoner one, and it too has its American counterpart, (E. velvetina ; while a third, only known as a straggler to Europe, the Surf-Duck, (E. perspicillata, with a white patch on the crown and another on the nape, and a curiously particoloured bill, is a not uncommon bird in North-American waters. All the species of (Edemia, like most other Sea-Ducks, have their true home in arctic or subarctic countries, but the Scoter itself is said to breed occasionally in Scotland (Zoologist, s.s. p. 1867). The females display little of the deep sable hue that charac- terizes their partners, but are attired in soot-colour, varied, especially beneath, with brownish white. The flesh of all these birds has an exceedingly strong taste, and, after much controversy, was allowed by the authorities to rank as fish in the ecclesiastical dietary (cf. Graindorge, Traite de I'origine des Macreuses, Caen, 1680; and Correspond- ence of John Ray, Ray Soc. ed., p. 148). 1 In the former case the derivation seems to be from the 0. Fr. Escoute, and that from the Latin auscultare (comp. Skeat, Etymol. Dictionary, p. 533), but in the latter from the Dutch Koet, which is said to be of Celtic extraction cwtiar (op. cit., p. 134). The French Macreuse, possibly from the Latin macer, indicating a bird that may be eaten in Lent or on the fast days of the Roman Church, is of double signification, meaning in the south of France a Coot and in the north a Scoter. By the wild-fowlers of parts of North America Scoters are commonly called Coots.