r those
that stay wisely sing, The fewer the better cheer; and all those that fly
away, first cast off their feathers here among these nettles and briars.

Accordingly we found some thrown by there; and as we looked up and down, we
chanced to light on what some people will hardly thank us for having
discovered; and thereby hangs a tale.

Chapter 5.V.

Of the dumb Knight-hawks of the Ringing Island.

These words were scarce out of his mouth when some five-and-twenty or
thirty birds flew towards us; they were of a hue and feather like which we
had not seen anything in the whole island. Their plumes were as changeable
as the skin of the chameleon, and the flower of tripolion, or teucrion.
They had all under the left wing a mark like two diameters dividing a
circle into equal parts, or, if you had rather have it so, like a
perpendicular line falling on a right line. The marks which each of them
bore were much of the same shape, but of different colours; for some were
white, others green, some red, others purple, and some blue. Who are
those? asked Panurge; and how do you call them? They are mongrels, quoth
Aedituus.

We call them knight-hawks, and they have a great number of rich
commanderies (fat livings) in your world. Good your worship, said I, make
them give us a song, an't please you, that we may know how they sing. They
scorn your words, cried Aedituus; they are none of your singing-birds; but,
to make amends, they feed as much as the best two of them all. Pray where
are their hens? where are their females? said I. They have none, answered
Aedituus. How comes it to pass then, asked Panurge, that they are thus
bescabbed, bescurfed, all embroidered o'er the phiz with carbuncles,
pushes, and pock-royals, some of which undermine the handles of their
faces? This same fashionable and illustrious disease, quoth Aedituus, is
common among that kind of birds, because they are pretty apt to be tossed
on the salt deep.

He then acquainted us with the occasion of their coming. This next to us,
said he, looks so wistfully upon you to see whether he may not find among
your company a stately gaudy kind of huge dreadful birds of prey, which yet
are so untoward that they ne'er could be brought to the lure nor to perch
on the glove. They tell us that there are such in your world, and that
some of them have goodly garters below the knee with an inscription about
them which condemns him (qui mal y pense) who shall th