114 THE BIEDS OF TIIl&IL. 



gathered materials for nesting'^: and of which Pliny tells his 

 readers that when they see this bird upon her nest they may 

 know that midsummer is past (Pliny, Nat. Hist, xviii. 267). 

 (2) the bird named columha ; which word, though etymologically 

 the same as pdlvmhes, is used by Pliny, and also by the 

 Eoman agricultural writers, to represent a bird which is cer- 

 tainly to be distinguished from ipalumabes.^ The columha was in 

 fact the tame pig«on of the Eomans : it was also their carrier- 

 pigeon ; for in the siege of Mutina, b. c. 43, the besieged general 

 communicated with the relieving force by means of oolwmhae, 

 to the feet of which letters were attached (Plin. x. no). The 

 words may here and there be used loosely, and it is possible that 

 attempts may have been made to domesticate the palumhes a,a well 

 as the columha ; but in the vast majority of passages the coh/mhsi 

 is certainly either the domestic bird or a wild bird of the same 

 species, while palumhes is some other kind of pigeon. 



Even in Yirgil the distinction is maintained; for while 

 palwmhes breeds in the jelm in the first Eclegue, already quoted 

 (which poem, it should be noted, is genuinely north-Italian, and 

 independent of a Greek original), colvmha on the other hand has 

 her nest in a rock, as the following well-known and beautiful 

 passage will plainly show — 



Qualis spelunca Bubito commota columba, 

 Cui domua et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi, 

 Fertur in arva vdlana, plausumque ezterrita penriis 

 Dat teoto ingentem, mox aere lapaa quieto 

 Kadit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet aJas, 



' Eclogue iii. 68. 



^ ColiffieUa viii. 8. Cato de Be Bu«tia», 9Q. 



