Ill] OF POULTRY 299 



bome wine ^ and water rubbed up with it a consider- 

 able time before the food is to be used, lest when 

 you do use it it swell up inside their bodies. They 

 must be given no water. Under this mixture should 

 be a layer of fine dust to prevent their beaks from 

 14 being injured by the hard earth. Where the feathers 

 begin to grow on the rump and from the head and 

 neck you must frequently pick out the lice, which 

 often make them ill. Near the hen-houses a stag's 

 horn * should be burnt, so that no serpent may come 

 near, for chickens commonly die from the smell of 

 these animals. The chickens must be brought out 

 into the sunlight and to the dung-hill where they 

 may tumble ' about, for so they grow * better, and 



* Vino. Keil justifies the insertion of this word by the fact 

 that in the parallel passages in Columella (viii, 5, 17) and the 

 Geoponica (xiv, 9) wine is mentioned. In this he follows 

 Pontedera {curae secundae). The latter writes tactam instead 

 of factam, comparing the aqua tacta of 10, 5, and expunges 

 intritam as a gloss explicative of tactam. 



- Comum cervinum. Columella (viii, 5, 18) says that gal- 

 banum or a woman's hair may also be used for the same 

 purpose. As to serpents he says: '• You must be careful that 

 chickens are not breathed upon by serpents, the smell of which 

 is so poisonous that it kills them every one." 



' Volutare. The reading of the Archetype was volitare, 

 which seems inapplicable to chickens. Volutare is defended 

 by Scaliger on the analogy of iii, 17, 7, cum mare turbaret, 

 but turbare is idiomatic, not uncommon in this sense and sup- 

 ported by authorities from Plautus to Cicero ; whereas Varro 

 (§ 7 of this chapter) has already written in pulvere volutari — 

 so that here, too, volutari should be read. 



* Alibiliores. In ii, 11, 3, we have alibiles used actively in 

 the sense of " nourishing." Several of these words ending in 



