178 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



grow up strong and healthy. In the first ten days 

 immediately following delivery, the mother is not 

 brought out from the sty except to drink. When 

 ten days have elapsed, she is allowed to go out and 

 feed in some spot close to the farmstead, so that 

 she can return frequently to suckle her little ones. 

 20 When the latter have grown big, they are allowed 

 to follow their mother when she goes out to feed, 

 but when at home they are separated from their 

 dams, and fed apart, to the end that they may learn 

 to go without the nursing mother. This they do in 

 ten days. 



The swineherd should train them to do every- 

 thing in obedience to the sound of the horn.^ After 

 first shutting them in, he does not open the door 

 until the horn blows, when they are taught to go 

 out to a place where barley has been poured out in 

 a long line — for by this method less is spoilt than if 

 it were piled in a heap, and more pigs can get to it 

 and with less trouble. The object we are told of 

 bringing them together by blowing the horn is to 



^ Ad bucinam. Polybius (xv, 12, 2) describes the methods 

 of the Italian swineherds of his day, who led their herds — not 

 following them as in Greece — and directed their movements 

 by blowing" the horn — ^vKavy (piovovvreg. 



Columella (vi, 23, 3) mentions the use of the horn for as- 

 sembling cows : Cum pastorali signo quasi receptui canitur. 

 Nam id quoque semper crepusculo fieri debet, ut ad sonum buc- 

 cinae pecuSy si quod in silvis substiterit, septa repetere con- 

 suescat. Sic enim recognosci grex poterit. 



The instrument is described by Ovid (Met., i, 335). It was 

 twisted like a shell, spiral and gibbous. 



