PHOENIX, in ornithology, a bird famous among the ancients, but generally looked upon by the moderns as fabulous. The ancients speak of this bird as single, or the only one of its kind; they describe it as of the size of an eagle; its head finely crested with a beautiful plumage, its neck covered with feathers of a gold colour, and the rest of its body purple, only the tail white, and the eyes sparkling like stars: they hold, that it lives 500 or 600 years in the wilderness; that when thus advanced in age, it builds itself a pile of sweet wood and aromatic gums, and fires it with the wasting of its wings, and thus burns itself; and that from its ashes arises a worm, which in time grows up to be a phoenix. Hence the Phœnicians gave the name of phœnix to the palm-tree; because when burnt down
Pholas. down to the root, it rises again fairer than ever.