B. VI.] THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS. 1 i5 



It sometimes lays three, as I have said, but it never brings 

 out more than two young ones, and sometimes only one, 

 the remaining egg is always addled. Very few birds begin 

 to lay before they are a year old ; but when they have once 

 begun to lay, they all, as we may say, naturally contain eggs 

 to the end of their life, though it is not easy to see them in 

 some birds, from their small size. 



2. The pigeon usually produces one male and one female, 

 and of these the male is often hatched first ; and having laid 

 an egg one day, she omits many days and then lays another. 

 The male sits during a portion of the day, and the female 

 during the night. The first young one is hatched and able to 

 fly within twenty days, and the egg is billed on the day before 

 it is hatched ; both the old birds keep the young ones warm 

 for some time, as they do the eggs. During the time of 

 bringing up their young the female is fiercer than the male : 

 this is also the case in other animals. They produce young ten 

 times in a year, and sometimes eleven times ; those in Egypt 

 even twelve times. The cock and hen birds copulate within 

 the year, for they do this at the end of six mouths. 



3. And some say that the phatta and trygon are matured 

 when three months old, and they consider their great num 

 bers as a proof of this. The female contains her eggs four 

 teen days, and then sits upon them fourteen more; in four 

 teen davs after this the young ones fly so well that it is 

 difficult to catch them. The phatta lives, as thev say, fort} 

 years ; the partridge more than sixteen years. The pigeon, 

 after having brought out her young, lays again in thirty days. 



CHAPTER V. 



1. THE vulture builds its nest in inaccessible rocks, where 

 fore its nest and young ones are rarely seen. For this 

 reason Herodorus, the father of Bryson the sophist, says 

 that vultures come from another part of the earth, which is 

 invisible to us, giving as a reason for his opinion, that thev 

 are seen in great numbers suddenly following the path of an 

 army. But difficult as it is to observe them, their nests have 

 been seen. The vulture produces two eggs. No other car 

 nivorous bird has been observed to produce young more than 

 once a year; but the swallow more frequently producer 

 young twice a year than the carnivorous birds. If a person 



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