68



Dr. E. Hopkinson,



always gives his meaning, and at any rate, as far as I am concerned,

it is now too late to think of any change, for the translation was

made some years ago, when I knew more German than I know or

want to know 7 now.


Dr. Russ, starting from the very beginning of things, writes

(iv, p. 2) :


“ In the Bible ornamental birds (‘ Sckmuckvogel ’) are several times

mentioned. As early as the time of Noah, the Dove was undoubtedly a

common house-bird. In the Book of Kings (i, 10, 22) and in Chronicles (ii,

9, 21) it is related that King Solomon brought in his ships from Ophir gold,

silver, ivory, apes and peacocks.* Although we have but little information as

to the development of bird-culture in China, it is certain that there, as well as

in Japan, the cult of living animals has been in vogue for thousands of years.

Three thousand years ago there were certainly Chinese Zoological Gardens, and

the domesticated small birds, which we nowadays import from that country,

the white Java Sparrows and the white Japanese Mannikins [he. the ‘Ben¬

galis.’— E. H.] show clearly that aviculture was known there from remote

ages.


“The legends of the Greeks say that the Argonauts (1350 b.c.) brought

back with them to their own country the Pheasant from the River Phasis in

Colchis; from the Greeks the cult reached Rome, where and whence it spread

rapidly. A good deal later the Gold Pheasant was imported and was no doubt

the origin of the well-known fable of the Phoenix, on account of the gleaming

red colour of its plumage. In the time of Pericles, in the fifth century before

Christ, the Peacock was so extremely rare in Greece, that, as Athenaeus

relates, people came immense distances to see a pair which a citizen of Athens

possessed. iElian says that at first Peacocks were exhibited for money, and the

orator Antiphon, a contemporary of Pericles, mentions in this connection that

the price of a pair was a thousand drachmae, that is, a thousand marks of our

money. In the temple of Juno at Samos Peacocks were kept as sacred birds

and their portraits are to be seen on Samian coins. Alexander the Great saw

them in India and admired their beauty so much that he threatened to inflict

the severest punishment on anyone who dared to kill these birds. Among the

Romans, we learn from various sources that, as early as 116 a.d.. one, Marcus

Aubdius Lurko, was carrying on Peafowl breeding on a large scale, his annual

profits being said to be 60,000 sestertia (9540 marks). In those days, too,

Parrots were highly valued, and those which could talk were among the most

prized luxuries in demand among the grand ladies of Rome, who also kept

white Blackbirds and other rare birds, while Pliny tells us that Agrippina, the

wife of the Emperor Claudius, possessed a Blackbird which was gifted with

speech.”



* Bird-catching and fowlers are also frequently mentioned ; in Jeremiah is a

reference to “ a cage full of birds,” the capture of Sparrows for food was

commonly practised, and the sellers of Doves in the Temple are familiar to

all. but whether the old Israelites kept birds for other than culinary and

sacrificial purposes, must be considered at least doubtful. — E. H.



