BOOK X. Lxx. 136-LXX1. 140 



attested by a number of people, a bird larger than an 

 eagle, having curved horns on the temples, in eolour 

 a rusty red, except that its head is purple-red. Nor 

 should the sirens obtain credit, although Dinon the 

 father of the celebrated authority Chtarchus declares 

 that they exist in India and that they charm people 

 with their song and then when they are sunk in a heavy 

 sleep tear them in pieces. Anybody who would be- 

 lieve that sort of thing would also assuredly not deny 

 that snakes by Ucking the ears of the augur Melam- 

 pus gave him the power to understand the language 

 of birds, or the story handed down by Democritus, 

 who mentions birds from a mixture of whose blood 

 a snake is born, whoever eats wliich will understand 

 the conversations of birds, and the things that he 

 records about one crested lark in particular, as even 

 without these stories hfe is involved in enormous 

 uncertainty with respect to auguries. Homer " 

 mentions a kind of bird called the scops* ; many people The dancimt 

 speak of its comic dancing movements when it is ^'^"^^- 

 watching for its prey, but I cannot easily grasp these 

 in my mind, nor are the birds themselves now known. 

 Consequently a discussion of admitted facts will be 

 more profitable. 



LXXI. The people of Delos began the practice of Fauening 

 fattening hens, which has given rise to the pestilential pliur^J^r^ 

 fashion of gorging fat poultry basted with its own^''*'"*'''- 

 gravy. I find this first singled out in the old inter- 

 dicts deahng with feasts as early as the law of the 

 consul Gaius Fannius eleven yeai*s <^ before the Third 

 Punic War, prohibiting the serving of any bird course 

 beside a single hen that had not been fattened — a 

 provision that was subsequently renewed and went 

 on through all our sumptuary legislation. And a 



