Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 4 (1846).djvu/162

1328 and sea-cows were found there. In 1726, however, two of them were brought alive to Batavia and confirmed by Valentyn." Whether the "singing" either of white or black swans is true, I know not ; nor is that of any importance to the subject of this communication, as what I am simply endeavouring to show, is, that the bird which Mr, King refers to, and from which he draws his deduction "that the singing of swans of the ancients is not fabulous," was a bird altogether unknown to them, and that therefore his deduction is erroneous. And, in order to do this, it will not be suf- ficient merely to bring forward the previous statement of its first discovery on record (however good may be the authority which that statement rests upon), but also to adduce independent proof, from altogether independent sources, that the bird in question was decidedly unknown : for, without this, no ornithologist of the present day could be prepared to affirm for certain, that the Cygnus atratus did not once exist in countries from which it has long retired, and that, for some cause unknown to us, it may have migrated from other lands to what has been long considered, and in fact really is, its sole remaining locality, — Australia. I grant that such an assumption is an exceedingly improbable one; but, so long as it is possible, proof of the non-existence is actually necessary to establish the point. And as one of the foremost, I would mention, that it is altogether unnoticed in Pliny's 'Historia Naturalis.' But, perhaps, Mr. King's ideas were rambling off amongst the satires of Juvenal, and "floating free," involun- tarily fixed themselves on that well-known simile, so familiar to us all, containing, as I believe it does, the only mention of a black swan in the whole bulk of classic au- thors combined. I, of course, refer to " Kara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno" (Sat. vi. 165), in which "nigro cygno," considered by the poet as the greatest impos- sibility in nature, is put in opposition, ironically, to "mulier casta!" The fact is, the whole satire being a bitter invective against the ladies of Rome, and most unsparing in its exposure, Juvenal does not cloak his censure when he likens their virtues not to a thing which may occasionally, though seldom exist ; but rather to a physical impos- sibility ; to what in the estimation of the age in which he lived, could not possibly by any means occur. Being anxious, moreover, not only to expose, but exaggerate their faults, he does not scruple to express his sentiments, and declares that a " mulier casta " is but another name for an impossibility; and asserts, satirically, that, if such a thing could exist (as he allows was once the case, when, by the intervention of the Sabine women, the war between the Romans and Sabines was put an end to), the fact would be so rare and extraordinary, and the person thus constituted such a "rara avis in terris" (a rare bird upon the earth) that he could liken her only to a black swan ("nigro cygno"), i.e. to the thing in nature most unlikely to occur, and there- fore the greatest impossibility he could fix upon ! To show exactly the force of the above quotation, I will just mention one more expression, which the poet, in the next satire, uses precisely in the same manner (only directed against the opposite sex), when he likens such fortunate men as Quintilian, Ventidius, or Tullius to "white crows." He says "Yet that fortunate person is also more rare than a white crow." In which, as before, an impossibility, as they considered it, is chosen, to give greater force to the expres- sion, and to show how extremely rare such lucky men must be ; or, rather, how impos- sible it is they could ever exist at all, unless Fortune smiled upon them at their birth. And, in like manner, many other examples of this common form of speech might be brought forward ; but why need we fly to antiquity for them, when we have idioms in