in] OF POULTRY 303 



hens are mostly chosen, and not necessarily those 

 which are improperly called **Melic" — for the 

 ancients, just as they used to say Thelis for Thetis, 

 so they said Melic instead of '* Medic." This name 

 was given to those hens which had been imported 

 on account of their great size from Media, and to 

 their progeny; afterwards to all big hens owing to 

 their likeness to them. Their wing-^ and tail-feathers 

 are pulled out and they are crammed with cakes made 

 of barley, sometimes ' of barley mixed with darnel 

 flour or with linseed steeped in fresh water. They 

 are fed twice a day, care being taken that the first 

 meal is digested before the second is given. This is 



mella (viii, 14, 11) gives the converse of Varro's statement: 

 '• Darkness and warmth help greatly the development of fat" 

 — ad creandas adipes multum conferunt. 



' Ex its. Keil brackets these words without reason. The 

 form of sp)eech is peculiarly Varronian — "from them, from 

 their wings and tails that is " — and can be supported by a 

 dozen instances from these books: cf. iii, 7, 6; iii, 13, i; i, 12, 

 3 ; iii, 6, 4, etc. 



'' Parttm = aliqut, as in Cicero (Divin., ii, 9) : Caesar a nohil- 

 issimis civibus, partim etiam a se omnibus rebus omatis, truci- 

 datus. In the Geoponica (xiv, 7) the three kinds of food are 

 distinguished: **They fatten best if they are kept in a warm 

 and dark house, and their wing feathers are pulled out and 

 barley mixed with water is given them as food. Others use a 

 mixture of barley and darnel flour, others of barley and lin- 

 seed." Columella (viii, 7, 3) recommends cakes {offae) made of 

 barley flour that has been moistened and well kneaded, or, If 

 you want the birds to be tender as well as fat, wheaten bread 

 steeped in a good wine diluted with three times its bulk of 

 water. 



