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198 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
or tempest, during the time the Halcyon sitteth and
bringetn forth her young ones, which is much about
the winter Solstitium, and shortest day in the yeare:
by whose privilege even in the hart and deadest time
of winter we have seven calme daies and as many nights
to saile without any danger. Their hens know no other
cocke but their owne: they never forsake him all the
daies of their life; 'and if the cocke chance to be
weake and crazed, the hen will take him upon her
neck and carrie him with her wheresoever she goeth,
and serve him even untill death. Mans wit could
never yet attaine to the full knowledge of that admirable
kind of building or structure which the Halcyon
useth in contriving of her neast, no, nor devise what
it is of.
Plutarke, who hath seen and handled many of them,
thinkes it to be made of certaine fish-bones, which she
so compacts and conjoyneth together, enterlacing some
long and some crosse-waise, adding some foldings and
roundings to it, that in the end she frameth a round
kind of vessel, readie to float and swim upon the water:
which done, she carrieth the same where the sea waves
beat most; there the sea gently beating upon it, shewes
her how to daube and patch up the parts not well closed,
and how to strengthen those places and fashion those
ribs that are not fast, but stir with the sea waves: and
on the other side, that which is closely wrought, the
sea beating on it, doth so fasten and conjoyne together,
that nothing, no, not stone or yron, can any way loosen,
divide, or break the same, except with great violence;
and what is most to be wondred at is the proportion
and figure of the concavitie within; for it is so composed
and proportioned that it can receive or admit no
manner of thing but the bird that built it; for to all
things else it is so impenetrable, close, and hard, that
nothing can possibly enter in: no, not so much as the
sea water. Loe here a most plaine description of this
building or construction taken from a verie good
author: yet me thinks it doth not fully and sufficiently
resolve as of the difficultie in this kinde of architecture.