Fun with Bestiaries!

Bunny the Landlord is a medieval studies postgrad, and she has found a thing of wonder.

"The dove is associated with Christ and the Holy Spirit. God sent his spirit in the form of a dove to gather mankind into his church. As there are many colours of doves, so there were many ways of speaking through the laws and the prophets. The meanings of the colours of the dove are:

• red- the predominant colour because Christ redeemed man with his blood
• speckled- the diversity of the twelve prophets
• gold- the three boys who refused to worship the golden image
• air coloured- the prophet Elisha, who was taken up into the air
• black- obscure sermons
• ash coloured- Jonah, who preached wearing a hair shirt and ashes
• stephanite- Stephen, the first martyr
• white- John the Baptist and the cleansing of baptism."

There are several things here that make intriguingly little sense. What does "obscure sermons" mean in this context? Where on earth did he get the idea that doves could be red, black or gold, let alone 'stephanite'? (I wikied it- stephanite is a silvery-black mineral, although wiki seems to think that the earliest mention of it is Georgius Agricola, who came along a few hundred years after the sources mentioned on the bestiary page). Who are the three boys who refused to worship the golden image? Do they mean the golden calf? I'm no Biblical scholar, but I'm looking at Exodus 32 now, and I can't see anything about three boys who refused to worship it (unless they were among the Levites who subsequently agreed to kill 3000 Israelites after Moses found out).

But I think the most bizarre point on the list is the air-coloured dove. Like, a completely translucent one? Or did the writer in question just live in Victorian London?

And then there's the quote from Bartholomaeus Anglicus:

"The culvour [dove] is forgetful. And therefore when the birds are borne away, she forgetteth her harm and damage, and leaveth not therefore to build and breed in the same place. Also she is nicely curious. For sitting on a tree, she beholdeth and looketh all about toward what part she will fly, and bendeth her neck all about as it were taking avisement. But oft while she taketh avisement of flight, ere she taketh her flight, an arrow flieth through her body, and therefore she faileth of her purpose, as Gregory saith."

(PS- The Biologist Housemate says that he's calling dibs on the dissertation title Effects of Plant Pheremones on Imaginary Vertebrates).