Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

470 SCO-
in the Theatrum Chimicum, and containing more alchemy
than astronomy, the sun and moon being taken as the
images of gold and silver; De Chiromantia, an opuscule
often published in the 15th century; and, perhaps best
known of all, De Physiognomia et de Hominis Procreatione,
which saw no fewer than eighteen editions between 1477
and 1660. This treatise is divided into three books, of
which the first deals with generation according to the
doctrine of Aristotle and Galen, the second with the signs
by which the character and faculties of individuals may
be determined from observation of different parts of the
body. The Physiognomia (which also exists in an Italian
translation) and the Super Auctorem Spheres expressly bear
that they were undertaken at the request of the emperor
Frederick. To the above list should be added certain
treatises in manuscript,—De Signis Planetarum; Contra
Averrhoem in Meteor a; Notitia C onvinctionis Mundi Ter-
restris cum Coelesti, et de Definitione utriusque Mundi; De
Preesagiis Stellarum et Elementaribus. Michael is said to
have foretold (after the double-tongued manner of the
ancient oracles) the place of Frederick’s death, which took
place in 1250. The Italian tradition makes Scot die in
Sicily not long afterwards, stating that he foretold the
manner of his own death. Jourdain is inclined to agree
with this approximate date, observing that Scot is spoken
of by Albert the Great as if he were already dead, and
that Vincent of Beauvais (d. c. 1268) quotes him with the
epithet “ vetus.” But the generally received tradition
makes him return by way of England (where he was re¬
ceived with much honour by Edward I.) to his native
country. The ordinary account gives 1291 as the date of
Scot’s death. According to one tradition he was buried
at Holme Cultram in Cumberland; according to another,
which Sir Walter Scott has followed in the Lay of the
Last Minstrel, in Melrose Abbey. In the notes to that
poem, of which the opening of the wizard’s tomb forms
the most striking episode, Scott gives an interesting ac¬
count of the various exploits attributed by popular belief
to the great magician. “In the south of Scotland any
work of great labour and antiquity is ascribed either to
the agency of Auld Michael, of Sir William Wallace, or
the devil.” He used to feast his friends with dishes
brought by spirits from the royal kitchens of France and
Spain and other lands. His embassy to France alone on
the back of a coal-black demon steed is also celebrated, in
which he brought the French monarch to his feet by the
effects which followed the repeated stamping of his horse’s
hoof. Other powers and exploits are narrated in Folengo’s
Macaronic poem of Merlin Coccaius (1595). But Michael’s
reputation as a magician was already fixed in the age im¬
mediately following his own. He appears in the Lnferno
of Dante (canto xx. 115-117) among the magicians and
soothsayers—
“ Quell’ altro, die ne’ fianclii e cosi poco,
Michele Scotto fu ; che veramente
Delle magiche frode seppe il giuoco. ”
He is represented in the same character by Boccaccio, and
is severely arraigned by John Pico de Mirandola in his
work against astrology, while Naude finds it necessary to
defend his good name in his Apologie p>our les grands per-
sonnages faussement accuses de magie.
SCOT, Reginald (c. 1538-1599), was the son of Richard,
third son of Sir John Scot of Scotshall, Smeeth (Kent),
studied at Hart Hall in Oxford, and afterwards lived in
studious retirement at Smeeth, dying in 1599. He was
the author of a very remarkable book, The Discoverie of
Witchcraft, the object of which was to put an end to the
cruel persecution of witches, by showing that “ there will
be found among our Witches only two sorts; the one sort
being such by imputation, as so thought of by others (and
-SCO
these are abused and not abusers), the other by acceptation,
as being willing so to be accounted, and these be meer
Coseners.” This thesis is worked out in sixteen books,
with great learning and acuteness, in a spirit of righteous
indignation against the witchmongers. Scot was far in
advance of his time, and his book, of which the first
edition appeared in 1584, was burned by order of King
James I. The book is still interesting, not only as having
anticipated Bekker by a century, but for the great mass
of curious details as to every branch of so-called witchcraft
which it contains. It also takes up natural magic and
conjuring at considerable length (bk. xiii.), and contains
an argument against “ alchymistry ” (bk. xiv.).
Scot also published in 1574 A perfite Platforms of a Hoppe
Garden (3d ed. 1578), which is noteworthy as having originated
the cultivation of the hop in England. A second edition of the
Discoverie appeared in 1651 and a third in 1665 ; the latter con¬
tained nine new chapters, prefixed by an anonymous hand to bk.
xv. of the Diseoverie, and the addition of a second book to the
“Discourse concerning Angels and Spirits.”
See B. Nicholson’s Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft, London, 1886.
SCOTER, a word of doubtful origin, perhaps a variant
of “ Scout,” one of the many local names shared in com¬
mon by the Guillemot (vol. xi. p. 262) and the Razorbill
(vol. xx. p. 302), or perhaps primarily connected with Coot
(vol. vi. p. 341 ),1 the English name of the Anas nigra of
Linnseus, which with some allied species has been justifiably
placed in a distinct genus, (Edemia (often misspelt Oidemia)
—a name coined in reference to the swollen appearance of
the base of the bill. The Scoter is also very generally
known around the British coasts as the “Black Duck”
from the male being, with the exception of a stripe of
orange that runs down the ridge of the bill, wholly of that
colour. In the representative American form, (E. ameri-
cana, the protuberance at the base of the bill, black in the
European bird, is orange as well. Of all Ducks the Scoter
has the most marine habits, keeping the sea in all weathers,
and rarely resorting to land except for the purpose of breed¬
ing. Even in summer small flocks of Scoters may generally
be seen in the tideway at the mouth of any of the larger
British rivers or in mid-channel, while in autumn and
winter these flocks are so increased as to number thousands
of individuals, and the water often looks black with them.
A second species, the Velvet-Duck, (E. fusca, of much larger
size, distinguished by a white spot under each eye and a
white bar on each wing, is far less abundant than the for¬
mer, but examples of it are occasionally to be seen in com¬
pany with the commoner one, and it too has its American
counterpart, (E. velvetina; while a third, only known as a
straggler to Europe, the Surf-Duck, (E. perspicillata, with
a white patch on the crown and another on the nape, and a
curiously particoloured bill, is a not uncommon bird in
North-American waters. All the species of (Edemia, like
most other Sea-Ducks, have their true home in arctic or
subarctic countries, but the Scoter itself is said to breed
occasionally in Scotland {Zoologist, s.s. p. 1867). The
females display little of the deep sable hue that charac¬
terizes their partners, but are attired in soot-colour, varied,
especially beneath, with brownish white. The flesh of all
these birds has an exceedingly strong taste, and, after
much controversy, was allowed by the authorities to rank
as fish in the ecclesiastical dietary (cf. Graindorge, Traite
de Vorigins des Macreuses, Caen, 1680; and Correspond¬
ence of John Pay, Ray Soc. ed., p. 148).
1 In the former case the derivation seems to be from the O. Fr.
Escoute, and that from the Latin auscidtare (comp. Skeat, Etymol.
Dictionary, p. 533), but in the latter from the Dutch Koet, which is
said to be of Celtic extraction—cwtiar (op. cit., p. 134). The French
Macreuse, possibly from the Latin macer, indicating a bird that may
be eaten in Lent or on the fast days of the Roman Church, is of double
signification, meaning in the south of France a Coot and in the north a
Scoter. By the wild-fowlers of parts of North America Scoters are
commonly called Coots.