BOOK VIII. viii. 9-12 



demned, because it is very easily espied by a 

 hawk. 



Fecundity in pigeons, though it is much less than 

 in hens, yet brings in greater profit ; for a pigeon, if 

 it is a good breeder, rears eight broods in the year, 

 and so pigeons fill the coffers of their owners with 

 the prices which their young command, as that 

 excellent writer Marcus Varro " assures us, who has 

 recorded that, even in those more austere times, a 

 single pair used to be sold for 1,000 sesterces. It 10 

 makes us blush for the present generation, if we are 

 willing to believe that people can be found to pay 

 4,000 nummi for a pair of birds, though I should regard 

 those people who pay great sums in copper and 

 silver for the pleasure which their pets give them 

 merely because they own and possess them, as less 

 insufferable than those who clear of all their birds the 

 river Phasis ^ in Pontus and the pools of Lake 

 Maeotis " in Scythia ; nay, they are now in their 

 drunkenness belching forth birds brought from the 

 Ganges and from Egypt. 



Nevertheless, the fattening process can also be 11 

 carried out in this pigeon-house, as has already been 

 said; for if any barren or badly-coloured pigeons 

 occur, they are crammed in the same manner as 

 hens. Young pigeons indeed are more easily fat- 

 tened under their mothers' care, if when they are 

 already strong but before they begin to fly, you pull 

 out a few of their wing-feathers and crush their legs, 

 that they may remain quiet in one spot, and give 

 plenty of food to the parent-birds with which they 

 may feed themselves and their young more abund- 

 antly. Some people bind their legs loosely together, 12 



* The Sea of Azov in South Russia. 



