214 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



customary at nuptials for the maids to watch that none of these 

 birds coming singly should disturb the solemnity. 



It was hardly to be expected that the comprehension 

 of all this science of soothsaying should belong to 

 ordinary mortals; and therefore there arose early in its 

 development certain clever ''wise men" who declared 

 themselves endowed with magical power to understand 

 the language of birds, and to interpret both their chatter 

 and their actions. Thus originated the profession of 

 augury, a word that spells "bird-talk" in its root-meaning, 

 with its later product auspices, or "bird-viewers." The 

 augur originally was a priest (or a magician, if you prefer 

 that term) who listened to what the birds said; and the 

 auspex was another who watched what they did, or 

 examined their entrails to observe anything abnormal that 

 he might construe as an answer to prayer, or interpreted 

 something else in the nature of an omen from this or that 

 divinity, or from all the gods together. 



I need not describe the elaborate rites and ceremonies 

 that came to be associated with the practice of this kind 

 of divination (ornithomancy), especially under the 

 revered and powerful College of Augurs that practically 

 ruled the Roman Republic, even in the Augustan age, for 

 it will suffice to direct attention to a few features. 



Birds were distinguished by the Roman augurs as 

 oscines or alites, "talkers" and "flyers." The oscines were 

 birds that gave signs by their cry as well as by flight, such 

 as ravens, owls and crows. The alites included birds like 

 eagles and vultures, which gave signs by their manner of 

 flying. The quarter of the heavens in which they ap- 

 peared, and their position relative to that of the observer, 

 were most important factors in determining the sig- 



