298 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



lightandfindsitis uniformly clear, it should be thrown 

 away, it is thought, and another put in its place. 

 3 The chickens^ that are hatched should be taken 

 from the several nests and put under a hen hav- 

 ing few chickens, and the few remaining eggs she 

 may have should be taken from her and put under 

 other hens that have not yet hatched their eggs. 

 They must have less than thirty chickens, for no 

 batch should exceed this number. 



For the first fifteen days after hatching you must, 

 give the chicks in the morning a mixture of barley- 

 meaP and cress seed, to which has been addedl 



^ Excusos pullos . . . et minus hahent triginta pullos. The' 

 difficulties of this passage lie in the words ah eaque and in the ' 

 last clause, which is sheer nonsense as it stands. Fortunately, 

 however, there is an almost exact translation in the Geoponica 

 (xiv, 7) • ''« ^^ iKKoKaTCTbiiiva veoma tvOkatg viroairaaTkov t$ tKaoTiiQ 

 opviOog Kai vito^Xtitsov ry oXiyapKoixry. to, dk Trap' avry firj Ko\a(p9svTa 

 u)d KaTafXEpKyrkov eig rag tri QaXitovaag 'iva fieT tKtivuiv OaXTrofiiva 

 ^(ooyovrJTai. ry dt oKiyapKOvay X' fiovov firj irXtov virofiXrjTtov. Now 

 Schneider considers ab ea to mean ah unaquaque matre, implied 

 in the words ex singulis nidis, and quotes the passage above 

 from the Geoponica to support his view. But obviously Trap' 

 avry must refer to ry bXtyapKovay^ not to kKaarr^Q bpvL9og, and the 

 sense of the passage must be that which I have given to 

 Varro's words, though it is possible, of course, that the Greekj 

 is a mistranslation. 



To meet the second difficulty I would propose to place a| 

 full-stop after excuderunt, and then read Et (or Ut) minus 

 habeant triginta pullos (" And hens must have less than thirty 

 chickens "), which would then be represented by the last sent- 

 ence of the passage quoted from the Geoponica. 



2 Polentam. Pliny (xviii, 7) describes the various ways of 

 making this. 



