vii Aristotle on Birds 177 



the Komans were in the habit of attending to the 

 prophetic properties of the birds. Thirdly, we must 

 not forget that, in spite of their reverence for them, 

 neither Greeks nor Romans ever scrupled to eat 

 them, and in fact to eat a much greater variety than 

 we sacrifice to our appetite for game. We learn 

 from Aristophanes' comedy of the Birds that there 

 was a bird market in Athens, just as there is a bird 

 market in modern Rome, " where," says Waterton in 

 his Autobiography, " I often counted over four hundred 

 Thrushes and Blackbirds, above one hundred Robins, 

 with twice as many Larks, and other small birds in 

 vast . profusion." In an Italian book on natural 

 history, drawn up for the use of schools, I found 

 that the part about birds began with a description 

 of the various ways of catching them ! Robins on 

 toast are said to be a favourite dish in Italy. 

 Whether the old Greeks went so far I cannot say ; 

 but at any rate the Greek was an enemy to birds, 

 for Aristophanes makes the chorus in the Birds 

 (which consisted, by the way, of twenty -four 

 different species) sing of man as 



" An impious race 

 Which was ever one to me 

 Bred in mortal enmity 

 Since it first began to be." 



And Peisthetserus tells the chorus that 



N 



