BOOK X. VI. 18-1X. 21 



to her first birds and soon afterwards big game, and 

 when finally she died it threw itself upon her Hghted 

 pyre and was burnt with her. On account of this 

 the inhabitants made what is called a heroon in that 

 place, which is named the Shrine of Jupiter and the 

 Maiden, because the bird is assigned to that deity, 



VII. Of vnltures the black are the strongest. No ^/««^'«"'•e 

 one has ever reached their nests, and consequently 

 there have actually been persons who have thought 

 that they fly here from the opposite side of the globe. 

 This is a mistake : they make their nests on extrernely 

 lofty crags. Their chicks indeed are often seen, 

 usually in pairs. The most learned augur of our age, 

 Umbricius, states that they lay thirteen eggs, but 

 use one of them for cleaning the remaining eggs and 

 the nest and then throw it away ; but that three 

 days before they lay the eggs they fly to some place 

 where there will be dead bodies. 



Vm. There is great question among the Roman ^ll^^^nu 

 augurs about the sanqualis and the immusulus. theim. 

 Some think that the immusulus is the chick of the "'"^^- 

 vulture and the sanquaUs of the bearded vulture. 

 Masurius says that the sanquahs Ls a bearded vulture 

 and the immusulus an eagle's cliick before its tail 

 turns white. Some persorts have asserted that they 

 have not been seen at Rome since the time of the 

 augur Mucius,'^ but for my own part I think it more 

 probable that in the general slackness that prevails 

 they have not been recognized. 



IX. Of hawks we find sixteen kinds, and among J^'''^'^'^^ 

 these the aegithus, which when lame in one foot is of aeyilhui ; 

 very fortunate omen for marriage contracts and for 

 property in cattle, and the triorchis, named from the 

 number of its testicles, the bird to which Phemonoe 



305 



