282 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



comes a third mongrel kind which is bred for profit. 

 These are put into a place called by some a per- 

 tsteron, by others a peris terotrophion^ in which 

 often as many as five thousand birds are confined. 



3 The peristeron is built in the shape of a large 

 testudo with a vaulted roof. It has a narrow en- 

 trance and windows latticed in the Carthaginian ^ 

 fashion, or wider than these are and furnished 

 with a double trellis, so that the whole place may^ 

 be well lit and no snake or other noxious animal 

 may be able to get in. Inside every part of th< 

 walls and ceilings is coated with the smoothest 

 possible cement made from marble; outside, too, 

 the walls in the neighbourhood of the windows an 

 plastered over to prevent a mouse or a lizard creej 

 ing by any way into the pigeon cotes. For nothing 



4 is more timid than a pigeon. Many round niches' 

 are made in a row, one for each pair of pigeons,] 

 and there should be as many rows as possible fromj 

 ground to ceiling. Each niche should be made s( 

 that the pigeon may have an opening just big^ 

 enough for it to come in and out, and should have 

 an inside diameter of three palms (one foot). Under 

 each row of pigeon-holes a shelf, eight inches 



^ Punicanis. The Carthaginians gave their name to many 

 things made of wood, as for example the plostellum Poenicum 

 (Varro, i, 52, i), the lectus Punicanus (Isidore, xx, 11), Puni- 

 cana coagmenta (Cato, xviii, 2), etc. 



'^ Columbaria. The writer of the article ** Pigeon" in the 

 ** Encyclopaedia Britannica," after criticizing severely modern 

 dove-cotes, in his description of the properly constructed pigeon- 

 house unconsciously plagiarizes from Varro. 



