102 Pliny's NATURAL HISTORY. [BookXYIII. 



crabs should be burnt ®- alive among the trees on which the 

 vines are trained, to prevent these from being attacked bj^ coal 

 blight ; while others say that the flesh of the silurus ^^ should 

 be burnt in a slow fire, in such a way that the smoke may be 

 dispersed by the wind throughout the vineyard. 



Yarro informs us, that if at the setting of the Lyre, whicli 

 is the beginning of autumn, a painted grape®^ is consecrated in 

 the midst of the vineyard, the bad w^eather will not be pro- 

 ductive of such disastrous results as it otherwise would. Archi- 

 bius^* has stated, in a letter to Antiochus, king of Syria, that 

 if a bramble-frog ^^ is buried in a new earthen vessel, in the 

 middle of a corn-field, there will be no storms to cause injury. 



CHAP. 71. WORK TO BE DONE AFTER THE SUMMER SOLSTICE. 



The following are the rural occupations for this interval 

 of time — the ground must have another turning up, and the 

 trees must be cleared about the roots and moulded up, where 

 the heat of the locality requires it. Those plants, however, 

 which are in bud must not be spaded at the roots, except where 

 the soil is particularly rich. The seed-plots, too, must be well 

 cleared Avith the hoe, the barley-harvest got in, and the 

 threshing-floor prepared for the harvest with chalk, as Cato^^ 

 tells us, slackened with amurca of olives; YirgiP^ makes men- 

 tion of a method still more laborious even. In general, how- 

 ever, it is considered sufiicient to make it perfectly level, and 

 then to cover it with a solution of cow-dung^^ and water ; this 

 being thought sufiicient to prevent the dust from rising. 



^^ This absurd practice is mentioned in the Geoponica, B. v. c. 31. 



^^ As to this fish, see B. ix. c. 17. 

 ^ '*^ " Uva picta " This absurdity does not seem to be found in any of 

 Vnrro's works tliat have come down to us. 



'^'^ Nothinsr whatever is known of him or his works ; and, as Fee says, 

 apparently tlie loss is little to be regretted, 



"s Rubeta rana. 



8^ De Re Rust. 129. Cato, however, does not mention chalk, but Virgil 

 (Georg. i. 178) does. Poinsinet thinks that this is a " lapsus memoriae" 

 ill Pliny, but Fee suggests that there may have been an omission by the 

 copyists. 



^"^ See the last Note. He recommends that it should be turned up "with 

 the hand, rammed down with " tenacious chalk," and levelled with a large 

 roller. 



«9 Both cow-dung and marc of olives are still employed in some parts of 

 France, in preparing the threshing floor. 



