However, they were nothing less, as Master Aedituus told us; assuring us,
at the same time, that they were neither secular nor laic; and the truth
is, the diversity of their feathers and plumes did not a little puzzle us.

Some of them were all over as white as swans, others as black as crows,
many as grey as owls, others black and white like magpies, some all red
like red-birds, and others purple and white like some pigeons. He called
the males clerg-hawks, monk-hawks, priest-hawks, abbot-hawks, bish-hawks,
cardin-hawks, and one pope-hawk, who is a species by himself. He called
the females clerg-kites, nun-kites, priest-kites, abbess-kites, bish-kites,
cardin-kites, and pope-kites.

However, said he, as hornets and drones will get among the bees, and there
do nothing but buzz, eat, and spoil everything; so, for these last three
hundred years, a vast swarm of bigottelloes flocked, I do not know how,
among these goodly birds every fifth full moon, and have bemuted, berayed,
and conskited the whole island. They are so hard-favoured and monstrous
that none can abide them. For their wry necks make a figure like a crooked
billet; their paws are hairy, like those of rough-footed pigeons; their
claws and pounces, belly and breech, like those of the Stymphalid harpies.
Nor is it possible to root them out, for if you get rid of one, straight
four-and-twenty new ones fly thither.

There had been need of another monster-hunter such as was Hercules; for
Friar John had like to have run distracted about it, so much he was nettled
and puzzled in the matter. As for the good Pantagruel, he was even served
as was Messer Priapus, contemplating the sacrifices of Ceres, for want of
skin.