Ill] OF PIGEONS 281 



CHAPTER VII 



OF PIGEONS 



1 Meanwhile Appius's servant came from the 

 Consul, and said that the augurs were wanted. 

 Appius went out from the Hall, and at that 

 moment there fluttered into it a flock of pigeons, 

 giving Merula occasion to say to Axius: Now 

 if ever you had set up a pigeon-house, you 

 might have imagined these birds to be yours, wild 

 though they are. For in a pigeon-house there are 

 usually the two kinds, one wild pigeons, or rock- 

 pigeons as some call them, kept in turrets and 

 gable-ends (columen) of the farmstead — it is from 

 columen they get the name columbae — and seek- 

 ing the highest places on buildings through their 

 inborn timidity. Hence the wild kind mostly haunt 

 turrets, flying up to them from the fields and back 



2 again as the fancy takes them. The other kind of 

 pigeon is less shy, for it feeds contentedly at home 

 about the doorstep. This is generally white,' while 

 the other, the wild kind, is of diff"erent colours, but 

 not white. From the union of these two stocks 



^ Colore alho. Cf. Columella (viii, 8, 9): "The white kind, 

 which is commonly seen everywhere, is not much approved 

 of by some people, though the colour is well enough for 

 pigeons which are kept in confinement. For those which fly 

 about freely it is the worst possible, as it is most easily espied 

 by the hawk." 



