froward, and loathsome than any kind whatsoever in the whole island.
Africa, said Pantagruel, still uses to produce some new and monstrous
thing.



Chapter 5.IV.

How the birds of the Ringing Island were all passengers.

Since you have told us, said Pantagruel, how the pope-hawk is begot by the
cardin-hawks, the cardin-hawks by the bish-hawks, and the bish-hawks by the
priest-hawks, and the priest-hawks by the clerg-hawks, I would gladly know
whence you have these same clerg-hawks. They are all of them passengers,
or travelling birds, returned Aedituus, and come hither from t'other world;
part out of a vast country called Want-o'-bread, the rest out of another
toward the west, which they style Too-many-of-'em. From these two
countries flock hither, every year, whole legions of these clerg-hawks,
leaving their fathers, mothers, friends, and relations.

This happens when there are too many children, whether male or female, in
some good family of the latter country; insomuch that the house would come
to nothing if the paternal estate were shared among them all (as reason
requires, nature directs, and God commands). For this cause parents use to
rid themselves of that inconveniency by packing off the younger fry, and
forcing them to seek their fortune in this isle Bossart (Crooked Island).
I suppose he means L'Isle Bouchart, near Chinon, cried Panurge. No,
replied t'other, I mean Bossart (Crooked), for there is not one in ten
among them but is either crooked, crippled, blinking, limping,
ill-favoured, deformed, or an unprofitable load to the earth.