BOOK X. XVI. 34-xvii. 37 



XVI. Night birds also have hooked talons, for owu. 

 instance the Httle owl, the eagle-owl and the 

 screech-owl. All of these are dim-sighted in the 

 daytime. The eagle-owl is a funereal bird, and is 

 regarded as an extremely bad omen, especially at 

 pubhc auspices ; it inhabits deserts and places that 

 are not merely unfrequented but terrifying and 

 inaccessible ; a wierd creature of the night, its cry 



is not a musical note but a scream. Consequenlty 

 when seen in cities or by dayHght in any circum- 

 stances it is a direful portent ; but I know several 

 cases of its having perched on the houses of private 

 persons without fatal consequences. It never flies 

 in the direction where it wants to go, but travels 

 slantwise out of its course. In the consulship " of 

 Sextus Palpellius Hister and Lucius Pedanius an 

 eagle-owl entered the very shrine of the Capitol, on 

 account of which a purification of the city was held 

 on March 7th in that year. 



XVII. There is also a bird of ill-omen called the Vnknown 

 fire-bird, on account of which we find in the annals ^iJil^omen. 

 that the city has often had a ritual purification, for 

 instance in the consulship * of Lucius Cassius and 

 Gaius Marius, in which year the appearance of an 

 eagle-owl also occasioned a purification. What this 



bird was I cannot discover, and it is not recorded. 

 Some persons give this interpretation, that the 

 fire-bird was any bird that was seen carrying a coal 

 from an altar or altar-table ; others call it a 

 ' spinturnix,' '^ but I have not found anybody who 

 professes to know what particular species of bird 

 that is. I also notice that the bird named by the 

 ancients * clivia ' is unidentified — some call it 

 ' screech-owl,' Labeo ' warning owl ' ; and moreover 



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