236 PREFACE. 



about birds in relation to their prognoftic na- 

 ture. Henceforward then, i. e. from the time 

 of Hefiod, they feem to have been looked upon 

 as no longer capable of diredling the hufband- 

 man in his rural affairs, but they did not how- 

 ever lofe their influence and dignity •, nay, on 

 the contrary, they feem to have gained daily a 

 more than ordinary, and even wonderful autho- 

 rity, till at laft no affair of confequence, either 

 of private or public concern, was undertaken 

 without confultingthem. They were looked upon 

 as the interpreters of the gods, and thcfe who 

 were qualified to underftand their oracles were 

 held among the chief men in the Greek and Ro- 

 man ftates, and became the affelTors of kings, and 

 even of Jupiter himfelf *. However abfurd fuch 

 an inftitution as a college of augurs may appear 

 in oar eyes, yet like all other extravagant infti- 

 tutions, it had in part its origin from nature. 

 When men confidered the wonderful migration 

 of birds, how they difappeared at once, and ap- 

 peared again at ilated times, and could give no 

 guefs where they went, itwasalmoil natural to 

 fuppofe, that they retired fomev/here out of the 

 fphere of this earth, and perhaps approached the 

 ?etherial regions, where they might ccnverfe with 

 the gods, and thence be enabled to predidt 

 events. This i fay was aimoft natural for a fu- 

 perftitlous people to imagine, at leaft to believe, 



* Jovi op'.Imo maximo f* confiliarum atque adminillrum da- 

 tum nieminerit augur. Cicero. 



Lacedzeriioiiii rf ges augnrcm alTeribrem habuerunt. Id. 



Aves inu-niuncue Jovis. Id. 



S-icerdotiim collegium vcl ncminc fclennc. Plin. Nat. Hift, 

 fpeakingof the.ar.gar;. 



as 



