were nothing less, as Master Aedituus told us; assuring us,
at the same time, that they were neither secular nor laic; and the truth
is, the diversity of their feathers and plumes did not a little puzzle us.

Some of them were all over as white as swans, others as black as crows,
many as grey as owls, others black and white like magpies, some all red
like red-birds, and others purple and white like some pigeons. He called
the males clerg-hawks, monk-hawks, priest-hawks, abbot-hawks, bish-hawks,
cardin-hawks, and one pope-hawk, who is a species by himself. He called
the females clerg-kites, nun-kites, priest-kites, abbess-kites, bish-kites,
cardin-kites, and pope-kites.

However, said he, as hornets and drones will get among the bees, and there
do nothing but buzz, eat, and spoil everything; so, for these last three
hundred years, a vast swarm of bigottelloes flocked, I do not know how,
among these goodly birds every fifth full moon, and have bemuted, berayed,
and conskited the whole island. They are so hard-favoured and monstrous
that none can abide them. For their wry necks make a figure like a crooked
billet; their paws are hairy, like those of rough-footed pigeons; their
claws and pounces, belly and breech, like those of the Stymphalid harpies.
Nor is it possible to root them out, for if you get rid of one, straight
four-and-twenty new ones fly thither.

There had been need of another monster-hunter such as was Hercules; for
Friar John had like to have run distracted about it, so much he was nettled
and puzzled in the matter. As for the good Pantagruel, he was even served
as was Messer Priapus, contemplating the sacrifices of Ceres, for want of
skin.

Chapter 5.III.

How there is but one pope-hawk in the Ringing Island.

We then asked Master Aedituus why there was but one pope-hawk among such
venerable birds multiplied in all their species. He answered that such was
the first institution and fatal destiny of the stars that the clerg-hawks
begot the priest-hawks and monk-hawks without carnal copulation, as some
bees are born of a young bull; the priest-hawks begat the bish-hawks, the
bish-hawks the stately cardin-hawks, and the stately cardin-hawks, if they
live long enough, at last come to be pope-hawk.

Of this last kind there never is more than one at a time, as in a beehive
there is but one king, and in the world is but one sun.

When the pope-hawk dies, another arises in his stead out of the whol