Accipitres 1 7 



PLINY. 



Of Accipitres we have found sixteen kinds. Circus 

 among them, halting in a foot, of lucky omen in 

 nuptial affairs and money business. Triorches next, 

 to which Phcemone 1 gave the foremost place in 

 auspices, named from the number of its testicles : 

 the Romans call it Buteo and the Greeks ^salon : 

 it is the only kind which may be seen at every time. 

 The rest leave us in winter. An Accipiter that flies 

 by night is called Cymindis ; it is rarely found in 

 woodlands, in the day it scarce can see : it wages 

 deadly warfare with the Aquila, and they are often 

 captured clinging to each other. So far Pliny. 



Though Aristotle may set forth that there are ten kinds 

 of Accipitres, and Pliny that there are sixteen, yet neither 

 of them has distinguished or described the kinds so that it 

 may be easy for a reader to apply to each its proper name 

 from their accounts. So no one can in fairness claim from 

 me their exact difference, nor yet the British or the German 

 name of each, together with the Latin or the Greek equivalent. 

 I will, however, surely not conceal from you, my reader, 

 what I think to be the British name, and to which Latin 

 name it ought to be applied. 



Buteo, called in Greek Tpiopxys, if I do not err, is the 

 Buzzard of the English, for it is compared with Milvus as 

 to size ; moreover it is seen at all times, and is such a bird 

 as Aristotle makes his Buteo in the eighth book of the 

 ' History of Animals.' 



Al<rd\(ov, since in Pliny's judgment it appears at every 

 season, and among the smaller Hawks the Merlin or the 

 Smerl alone seems to appear 2 at all times, is, I think, the 

 Merlin of the English and Smerl of the Germans. 



1 Phoemone, called 'Daughter of Apollo,' was a priestess at Delphi. 

 (See Pliny Hist. Nat. ed. Hardouin : Lipsias, 1791, Index Auctorum, 

 p. 340.) 



2 This seems to be the force of the subjunctive here, if it is not an 

 oversight. 



T. 2 



