s
are very rare; and there is scarce a goose to be seen in the whole
county of Nice. Wild-ducks and teal are sometimes to be had in the
winter; and now I am speaking of sea-fowl, it may not be amiss to tell
you what I know of the halcyon, or king's-fisher. It is a bird, though
very rare in this country about the size of a pigeon; the body brown,
and the belly white: by a wonderful instinct it makes its nest upon the
surface of the sea, and lays its eggs in the month of November, when
the Mediterranean is always calm and smooth as a mill-pond. The people
about here call them martinets, because they begin to hatch about
Martinmass. Their nests are sometimes seen floating near the shore, and
generally become the prize of the boys, who are very alert in catching
them.

You know all sea-birds are allowed by the church of Rome to be eaten on
meagre days, as a kind of fish; and the monks especially do not fail to
make use of this permission. Sea turtle, or tortoises, are often found
at sea by the mariners, in these latitudes: but they are not the green
sort, so much in request among the aldermen of London. All the
Mediterranean turtle are of the kind called loggerhead, which in the
West-Indies are eaten by none but hungry seamen, negroes, and the
lowest class of people. One of these, weighing about two hundred
pounds, was lately brought on shore by the fishermen of Nice, who found
it floating asleep on the surface of the sea. The whole town was
alarmed at sight of such a monster, the nature of which they could not
comprehend. However, the monks, called minims, of St. Francesco di
Paolo, guided by a sure instinct, marked it as their prey, and
surrounded it accordingly. The friars of other convents, not quite so
hungry, crowding down to the beach, declared it should not be eaten;
dropped some hints about the possibility of its being something
praeternatural and diabolical, and even proposed exorcisms and
aspersions with holy water. The populace were divided according to
their attachment to this, or that convent: a mighty clamour arose; and
the police, in order to remove the cause of their contention, ordered
the tortoise to be recommitted to the waves; a sentence which the
Franciscans saw executed, not without sighs and lamentation. The
land-turtle, or terrapin, is much better known at Nice, as being a
native of this country; yet the best are brought from the island of
Sardinia. The soup or bouillon of this animal is always pre