268 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



to a smaller one, which is united to the larger by a 

 door, and has more light. This is called the 

 ^' Seclusorium." When the owner has thus en- 

 closed the number he purposes to sell he kills them 



6 all. This is done in secret and away from the others 

 lest these seeing it should mope, and die at a time 

 inconvenient to the seller. 



Fieldfares do not resemble other immigrant birds 

 in breeding on the ground like storks, or under the 

 roof like swallows — their masculine name {turdi) 

 by the way does not imply that there are no females 

 amongst them, any more than the feminine name 

 for blackbird {meruld) prevents blackbirds from 



7 being some of them males. Again, some birds are 

 migratory, such as swallows and cranes ; others, as 

 doves and hens, are indigenous, and it is to the 

 former immigrant kind that fieldfares belong, for 

 they fly across the sea to Italy every year about the 

 autumnal ^ equinox, and about the spring equinox 

 fly back to the same place [whence they came] ; so 

 at a different season do turtle-doves and quails in 

 vast numbers. This fact is made clear in the neigh- 



^ Circiter aequinoctium autumnale^ etc. This passage is im- 

 portant as fixing the meaning of the word turdus used by 

 Varro, Horace, etc., as it accurately describes the migratory 

 habit of the turdiis pilaris of Linnaeus — the fieldfare — which 

 visits this country in October, and leaves it in May for its 

 northern breeding places. 



The fenerator Alphius of Horace's delightful second epode 

 speaks of snaring turdi in the winter : 



Aut amite levi rara tendit retia 

 Turdis edacihus dolos. 



