BIRDS MENTIONED BY ARISTOTLE. 251 



According to Aristotle, phalaris is one of the heavier web- 

 footed birds living in the neighbourhood of lakes and rivers. 

 Athenaeus says it is rounder thanowna., and is ash-coloured below 

 and somewhat black above. It seems probable that phalaris was 

 the Coot (Fulica atra), as stated by Billerbeck, Schneider, and 

 others. The Coot, it is true, has lobated feet, but would properly 

 come under Aristotle's web-footed division of birds, as is clear 

 from the passage previously quoted from Aristotle's ' Parts of 

 Animals,' iv. 12. Belon, however, identified phalaris with la 

 piette, by which he probably meant the Smew (Mergus albellus), 

 and Sundevall follows him. The Smew is tolerably common in 

 Greece in winter, but the colour of its plumage does not answer 

 at all well with Athenseus' description of phaiaris. 



Colymbis — so called, as Athenseus says, from colymbao, to 

 dive — has been identified by Gesner, Belon, Gaza, Schneider, 

 and many others as the Latin urinatrix, or diver. Billerbeck 

 appears to be undecided between the Pochard Duck and Goos- 

 ander, and Sundevall argues strongly in favour of regarding 

 colymbis as a species of Grebe. Sundevall's opinion appears to 

 be correct, for Athenseus says that the little colymbis, which is 

 the least of all aquatic birds, is of a dirty black colour, has a 

 sharp beak, and dives much. This little bird is no doubt the 

 Little Grebe, and it seems reasonable to conclude that colymbis, 

 which Aristotle mentions among the heavier water-birds, was a 

 larger Grebe, perhaps Podicipes cristatus, a bird very common in 

 Greece and Turkey. The lobated feet of P. cristatus need pre- 

 sent no difficulty in adopting this view, as is shown by Aristotle's 

 * Parts of Animals,' iv. 12, previously quoted. The Grebe is 

 called colymbos by modern Greeks, according to Contopoulos. 

 The colymbis might have included the Pochard Duck, which is 

 fairly common in Greece and Turkey, but the passage in 

 Athenaeus on the little colymbis does not favour this suggestion. 

 There appears to be far less reason for considering colymbis as a 

 diver (colymbus), as understood by modern ornithologists, or as 

 the Goosander, for none of these birds occurs in Greece except 

 as a rare visitant, and even then only on the coasts, as a 

 rule. Aristophanes does not say much about colymbis, but 

 in the "Birds" Euelpides asks, "Who led the owl towards 

 Athens? " and his fellow- villain of the play, Pisthetserus, mentions 



