speaketh of this bird and saith that phoenix is a bird without make,
and liveth three hundred or five hundred years: when the which years
are past, and he feeleth his own default and feebleness, he maketh a
nest of right sweet-smelling sticks, that are full dry, and in summer
when the western wind blows, the sticks and the nest are set on fire
with burning heat of the sun, and burn strongly. Then this bird
phoenix cometh willfully into the burning nest, and is there burnt to
ashes among these burning sticks, and within three days a little worm
is gendered of the ashes, and waxeth little and little, and taketh
feathers and is shapen and turned to a bird. Ambrose saith the same in
the Hexameron: Of the humours or ashes of phoenix ariseth a new bird
and waxeth, and in space of time he is clothed with feathers and wings
and restored into the kind of a bird, and is the most fairest bird
that is, most like to the peacock in feathers, and loveth the
wilderness, and gathereth his meat of clean grains and fruits. Alan
speaketh of this bird and saith, that when the highest bishop Onyas
builded a temple in the city of Heliopolis in Egypt, to the likeness
of the temple in Jerusalem, on the first day of Easter, when he had
gathered much sweet-smelling wood, and set it on fire upon the altar
to offer sacrifice, to all men's sight such a bird came suddenly, and
fell into the middle of the fire, and was burnt anon to ashes in the
fire of the sacrifice, and the ashes abode there, and were busily kept
and saved by the commandments of the priests, and within three days,
of these ashes was bred a little worm, that took the shape of a bird
at the last, and flew into the wilderness.

The crane is a bird of great wings and strong flight, and flieth high
into the air to see the countries towards the which he will draw. And
is a bird that loveth birds of his own kind, and they living in
company together have a king among them and fly in order. And the