CLASSIC PLEASURE GROUNDS 33 



by its junction with another watercourse, is a distance of 

 eight hundred and fifty feet. Along its banks a walk is 

 laid out ten feet broad ; between this walk and the 

 country my aviary is placed, closed in right and left 

 by high walls. The external lines of the building gave 

 it some resemblance to writing tablets surmounted by 

 a capitol. On the rectangular side its breadth is 

 forty-eight feet and its length seventy-two, not includ- 

 ing the semicircular capitol, which is twenty-seven 

 feet in diameter. Between the aviary and the walk, 

 which marks the lower margin of the tablets, opens 

 a vaulted passage leading to an esplanade (ambulatio). 

 On each side is a regular portico upheld by stone col- 

 umns, the intervals between which are occupied by dwarf 

 shrubs. A network of hemp stretches from the outside 

 walk to the architrave, and a similar trellis joins the 

 architrave to the pedestal. The interior is filled with 

 birds of every species, which receive their food through 

 the net. A little stream supplies them with water." * 



Greenhouses with panes of glass or of translucent Green- 

 stone were built for the protection of the more tender 

 plants in winter, and to force others to mature out of 

 season. Here exotics from the East were grow T n. 



Multitudes of birds, beasts, and insects, as well as Aviaries and 



apiaries. 



human beings, were made welcome to portions of the 

 plantation and supplied . with suitable dwelling-places. 



1 " Of Agriculture," M. T. Varro. ^ 



