BOOK VIII. IV. 1-5 



before them and likewise bran if only partly separ- 

 ated from the meal; for if there is no meal with 

 the food, it is not suitable nor have they much 

 appetite for it, though they be hungry. The leaves 2 

 and seeds of the shrub-trefoil are very highly 

 approved and are greatly appreciated by fowls, and 

 there is no region in which it is not possible to 

 find a very great abundance of this shrub. Grape- 

 husks, although they tolerate them as food, should 

 not be given to fowls except at times of year 

 when they are not laying ; for they cause them to 

 lay seldom and only small eggs. But when they 

 obviously stop laying after the autumn, they can be 

 kept on this food. Whatever food is to be given 3 

 them when they are loose in the poultry-yard should 

 be distributed in two parts, one when day is beginning 

 and the other when it has already declined towards 

 evening, so that in the morning they may not imme- 

 diately wander too far away from their sleeping- 

 quarters and that they may return before dusk to the 

 poultry-house in better time in hopes of finding food 

 there, and that the number of head may be vei-ified 

 more often. For winged creatures easily delude the 

 watchfulness of the man who looks after them. 



Dry dust and ashes should be placed near the party 4 

 walls wherever a porch or a roof shelters the poultry- 

 yard, so that the birds may have the means to sprinkle 

 themselves ; for it is with these that they clean their 

 feathers and wings, if we believe Heraclitus " the 

 Ephesian who says that pigs wash themselves with 

 mud, farm-yard fowls with dust or ashes. A hen 5 

 ought to be let out after the first hour of the day and 

 be shut up again before the eleventh hour. Its 

 manner of life when it is let loose will be as we have 



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