Chap. 24.] 
THE DUFG-HILL COCK. 
497 
kind, and, in every place where they are kept, hold the supreme 
command. This, however, is only obtained after repeated 
battles among themselves, as they are well aware that they 
have weapons on their legs, produced for that very purpose, as 
it were, and the contest often ends in the death of both the 
combatants at the same moment. If, on the other hand, one 
of them obtains the mastery, he instantly by his note proclaims 
himself the conqueror, and testifies by his crowing that he has 
been victorious ; while his conquered opponent silently slinks 
away, and, though with a very bad grace, submits to servitude. 
And with equal pride does the throng of the poultry yard strut 
along, with head uplifted and crest erect. These, too, are the 
only ones among the winged race that repeatedly look up to 
the heavens, with the tail, which in its drooping shape re- 
sembles that of a sickle, raised aloft : and so it is that these 
birds inspire terror even in the lion,*^^ the most courageous of 
all animals. 
Some of these birds, too, are reared for nothing but warfare 
and perpetual combats, and have even shed a lustre thereby 
on their native places, Ehodes and Tanagra. The next rank 
is considered to belong to those of Melos"^^ and Chalcis. Hence, 
it is not without very good reason that the consular purple of 
Eome pays these birds such singular honours. It is from the 
feeding of these creatures that the omens "^"^ by fowls are de- 
rived ; it is these that regulate ''^ day by day the movements of 
our magistrates, and open or shut to them their own houses, 
as the case may be ; it is these that give an impulse to the 
fasces of the Eoman magistracy, or withhold them ; it is these 
that command battles or forbid them, and furnish auspices for 
victories to be gained in every part of the world. It is these 
that hold supreme rule over those who are themselves the rulers 
of the earth, and whose entrails and fibres are as pleasing to 
the gods as the first spoils of victory. Their note, when heard 
at an unusual hour or in the evening, has also its peculiar pre- 
sages ; for, on one occasion, by crowing the whole night through 
for several nights, they presaged to the Boeotians that famous 
See B. viii. c. 19. 
76 Possibly Media ; Varro says, " Medicos." 
■^^ "Tripudia solistima.'* An omen derived from the feeding of the 
fowls, when they devoured their food with such avidity, that it fell from 
their mouths and rebounded from the ground. 
By the auspices which they afforded. 
VOL. II. K K 
