382 FANCY PIGEONS. 



a rare and expensive book, copies having been sold at from 

 £50 to £120, tbongb I was once offered an imperfect one for 

 mucli less; but many later editions were publisbed before 

 1550, and tbese can occasionally be purchased for little money. 

 An English translation of Pliny, by Dr. Philemon Holland, 

 was published in 1601, and another by Bostock, in 6 vols., in 

 late years, by Bohn. Pliny's "Hisioiy" is a great storehouse 

 of ancient learning, all that is known of the writings of hun- 

 dreds of lost authors being preserved in it. The author was a 

 man of the most indefatigable industry, and wrote many 

 other works. Being near the Bay of Naples, in command of a 

 Roman fleet, when the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed 

 Pompeii and Herculaneum (a.d. 79) broke out, he sailed 

 near, and went on shore to observe more closely its effects. 

 A midnight-like darkness coming on, from the quantity 

 of dust and fine ashes in the air, the party hurried back to 

 the shore ; but Pliny, then fifty-six years of age, being 

 corpulent, and his breathing becoming affected, was unable 

 to proceed, and soon after lay down and died. These particu- 

 lars are recorded in the letters of his nephew, Pliny the 

 Younger. 



Aldrovandi, Ulyssis : " Oenithologia." BonnoniaB, 1599- 

 1603, 3 vols.; 2nd Ed., Francofurti, 1610, 2 vols., folio. 



Aldrovandi (1522-1607), the Italian naturalist, began the 

 publication of his works on natural history in 1599, and they 

 were continued for many years after his death, the series being 

 concluded in 1668. In the second volume of the Frankfort 

 edition of his "Ornithology" there are sixty closely-printed 

 folio pages containing quotations from ancient authors who 

 have referred in any way to the pigeon, and everything extant 

 on the subject, from Homer to Tasso, seems to have been 

 known to the writer. I find almost everything mentioned 

 about pigeons that I had discovered in my reading of Greek 

 and Roman authors, and much more besides; and I think 

 Aldrovandi's account may be considered an epitome of ancient 



