BOOK X. lAxix. 158-161 



pigeon sits from noon till the next morning and the 

 cock the rest of the time. Pigeons always lay a 

 male and a female egg, the male first and the female 

 a day later. In this species both birds sit, the cock 

 in the daytime and the hen at night. They hatch in 

 about three weeks, and they lay four days after 

 mating. In summer indeed they sometimes produce 

 three pairs of chickens every two months, for they 

 hatch on the 17th " day and breed immediately ; 

 consequently eggs are often found among the 

 chickens, and some are beginning to fly just when 

 others are breaking the egg. Then the chicks them- 

 selves begin laying when five months old. However 

 in the absence of a cock hen birds actually mate with 

 one another indifferently, and produce unfertile 

 eggs from which nothing is produced, which the 

 Greeks call wind-eggs. 



The peahen begins to lay when three months Matinooj 

 old. In the fiirst year it lays one egg or a second p^'^"'^*'*- 

 one, but in the following year four or five at a time, 

 and in the remaining years twelve at a time, but not 

 more, with intervals of two or three days between 

 the eggs, and three times in the year, provided that 

 the eggs are put under farmyard hens to sit on. The 

 male peacock breaks the eggs, out of desire for the 

 female sitting on them ; consequently the hen bird 

 lays at night, and in hiding or when perching on a 

 high place — and unless the eggs are caught on a bed 

 of straw they are broken. One cock can serve five 

 hens, and when there have been only one or two 

 hens for each cock their fertiUty is spoiled by its 

 salaciousness. The chickens are hatched in 27 days 

 or at latest on the 29th. 



** See note <" on c. LXXV. 



395 



