Note 265 — ABDULLAH[232] THE FISHERMAN AND ABDULLAH THE MERMAN.

Here the writer’s zoological knowledge is at fault. Animals, which never or very rarely see man, have no fear of him whatever. This is well-known to those who visit the Gull-fairs at Ascension Island, Santos and many other isolated rocks; the hen birds will peck at the intruder’s ankles but they do not rise from off their eggs. For details concerning the “Gull-fair” of the Summer Islands consult p. 4 “The History of the Bermudas,” edited by Sir J. H. Lefroy for the Hakluyt Society, 1882. I have seen birds on Fernando Po peak quietly await a second shot; and herds of antelopes, the most timid of animals, in the plains of Somali-land only stared but were not startled by the report of the gun. But Arabs are not the only moralists who write zoological nonsense; witness the notable verse,

Birds in their little nests agree,

when the feathered tribes are the most pugnacious of breathing beings.