Ambrose as well ( Hexaemeron, V, 16, 53), and possibly also Celsus (cited in Origen, Contra Celsum, IV, 98) and Porphyry ( De abstinentia, III, 23, 1). The Cambridge Bestiary has taken this idea from Isidore of Seville, who, in the Etymologiarum (XII, vii), says more or less the same. The accompanying image shows a stork that carries a frog in its beak, obviously a dainty morsel for its young. White, ed., New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1960: pp. What is more, when they have moulted in this way, they in turn are looked after by the babies, for a time corresponding in length to the time which they themselves have spent in bringing up and cherishing their offspring.” ( The Bestiary, T.H. In the Cambridge Bestiary (twelfth century CE), we read that storks nourish their young with exemplary affection, and that “they incubate the nests so tirelessly that they lose their own feathers. A search for traces of the stork from the Renaissance backwards is filled with pleasant surprises. In other words, the information contained in the Hieroglyphica was already at the disposal of European culture.
These features are, however, mentioned in a fourth century AD text, the Hexaemeron of Basil (VIII, 5).
Yet we have just seen that there is no reference either to the feeding of the young or to the transport of the parents. “ Alciati’s commentary refers to the passage describing the stork in the Hieroglyphica.