3o6 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



from I St February or ist March to the summer 

 solstice. Coupling generally takes place in the 

 water, for which purpose they are driven i into a 

 river or a pond. A goose does not lay more than 

 three times in the year. They must each have a pen 

 made in which to lay their eggs, two and a half feet 

 square, which must be strewn with straw. You must 

 put some mark on their eggs, as they do not hatch 

 those of other geese. As a rule nine or eleven are 

 put under the hen-bird to be hatched, if less, five, 

 if more, fifteen. Hatching takes thirty days; when 

 the weather^ is comparatively mild, twenty-five. 



^ Iniguntur. Scaliger's emendation for the inunguentur of 

 the Archetype. Schneider supports the reading merguntur from 

 " the nature ofthings," and from Aristotle (H. A., vi, 2): otx^«f 

 6x(v9tvTfg KaTaKo\vfi(3u)(Ti. 



Columella (viii, 14, 4) : Ineunt autem non . . . insistentes 

 humi: nam fere injlumine aut piscinis idfaciunt. 



^ Tempestatihus. This word seems to have strayed from its 

 place. I would read : Incuhat dies triginfa, tempestatihus tepi- 

 diorihus xxv,^^ for it is much to be doubted if tempestatihus 

 can, unquaHfied, mean "in bad weather," or even "in stormy 

 weather," and, supposing the word to have that meaning 

 here, then it is unsuited to tepidiorihus. The Geoponica (xiv, 

 22) say: " Hatching takes generally twenty-nine days, in cold 

 weather thirty." Columella (viii, 14, 7) has: triginta diehus 

 opus est cum sunt frigora, nam tepidis xxv satis est, " cf. Pliny 

 (x, 59): Incuhant tantum tricenis diehus^ si veto tepidiores 

 sint xxVy which supports the proposed change. 



In the chapter quoted above Pliny gives many interesting 

 facts about geese, e.g., "the first thing contracted for by the 

 censors is the food of the sacred geese. Geese walk all the 

 way from Brittany to Rome. White ones provide a second 

 source of income in the shape of down, the best of which 



