BOOK X. XXXI. 6r-x.xxiii. 65 



the night-time, and although they fly to and fro 

 across the country, it is thought that they have never 

 arrived anywhere except by night. There is a place 

 in Asia called Snakesdorp with a wide expanse of 

 plains where cranes meet in assembly to hold a 

 palaver, and the one that arrives last they set upon 

 with their claws, and so they depart ; it has been 

 noticed that they have not frequently been seen there 

 after the first fortnight of August. Some persons 

 declare that storks have no tongue. They are held 

 in such high esteem for destroying snakes that in 

 Thessaly to kill them was a capital crime, for which 

 the legal penalty was the same as for homicide. 



XXXII. Geese and swans also migrate on a similar oiher 

 principle, but the flight of these is seen. They travel Thl^ZVJ 

 in a pointed formation hke fast galleys, so cleaving 



the air more easily than if they drove at it with a 

 straight front ; while in the rear the flight stretches 

 out in a gradually widening wedge, and presents a 

 broad surface to the drive of a following breeze. They 

 place their necks on the birds in front of them, 

 and when the leaders are tired they receive them 

 to the rear. (Storks return to the same nest. 

 They nourish their parents' old age in their turn.) * 

 A story is told about the mournful song of swans at 

 their death — a false story as I judge on the strength 

 of a certain number of experiences.'' Swans are 

 cannibals, and eat one another's flesh. 



XXXIII. But this migration of birds of passage Smaiier 

 over seas and lands does not allow us to postpone ^^equati' 

 the smaller breeds as well that have a similar nature. 'heortoian. 

 For however much the size and strength of body of 



the kinds above mentioned may appear to invite 

 them to travel, the quails always actually arrive 



333 



