Bird. The Philosophers have normally taken birds as symbols of the volatile parts of the material of the Great Work, and have given to their Mercury the names of various birds: sometimes an eagle, sometimes a gosling, a crow, a swan, a peacock, a phoenix, a pelican; all these names suiting the material of the Art according to the differences of color or of state that it undergoes in the course of the operations. The Philosophers have even taken into consideration the character of each bird whose name they use in order speak of their material metaphorically. When they have wanted to designate the volatility and the action of the dissolvent mercury upon the fixed part of their material, they have called it an eagle, or a vulture, since these are strong, carnivorous birds – such is what is said in the Fable to have gnawed at the liver of Prometheus. It’s the eagle that must combat the lion, according to Basil Valentine and the other Adepts. Putrefaction is expressed by this combat, which is succeeded by the death of the two adversaries. Blackness being a sequence of putrefaction, they have said that of the bodies of the two combatants is born a crow, insomuch as it is a black bird, but also because it feeds on corpses. Blackness is followed by the varied colors of the rainbow. Consequently, the crow becomes a peacock, because of the admirable colors in the tail of this animal. Next comes whiteness, which couldn’t be better expressed than by the swan. The redness of poppy that follows brings to mind the phoenix, which is said to be red – even its name expresses this color. Thus, each Philosopher has borrowed the names which he believed suitable for what he wanted to express from the birds he was familiar with. This is why the Egyptians have introduced the two kinds of Ibis, black and white (which devoured serpents, ridding the land of them) into their hieroglyphs. One sees many examples of these allegories in Les Fables Egyptiennes et Grecques dévoilées [Another book by the author]. THE BIRD OF HERMES: Mercury of the Philosophers BIRD without wings: Sulphur of the Sages. Senior has taken two combatting birds to symbolize the volatile material and the fixed material of the Art, one, having wings, placed above one without wings; they each hold the other by the tail [like the Ouroborus], and the bird with developed wings seems to want to lift the other, who seems to make every effort to not leave the ground. BIRD OF THE SAGES: Philosophic Mercury GOLDEN BIRD: Magisterium before his fixation; containing the principles of gold and being volatile. GREEN BIRD: Material of the work before its preparation. [vegetal]