AUGURY. 
G60 
joy nay, some spectators, of warmer imagination, believed that the 
head of the traitor had been borne in the talons of this auspicious 
bird. {Suet. Dom. 6.) 
A concourse of crows, vultures, and eagles, hovered above the 
troops of Brutus and Cassius, as they took post at Philippi, {Dion. 
xlvii.) and the same birds spake a note of fearful preparation to 
Lepidus, by thronging the temples of the genius of Rome and of 
Concord. Cranes, if they are diverted from their flight, and turned 
backward, had alreaidy snuffed the storm, and were a sign of wo to 
mariners. {Georg, i. j^n. x.) The stork is believed by the com- 
mentators to have been an omen of concord ; but the belief, perhaps, 
is founded on misapprehension of a passage in Juvenal. The falcons- 
gentle, as the gamesters of the hood-and-bell would term it, betoken 
marriage and rich pastures. It was cited by the soothsayer Theo- 
clynienus, as favourable to Telemachus., 525.) and the bard 
finds no better omen to which he can liken his hero, when he is rush- 
ing to the destruction of Hector. {11. x. 139.) A falcon too, {capis, in 
the Tuscan language,) gave its name to Capua. The pie, the nightingale, 
and the heron were prosperous if they flew towards each pole ; but as 
Pliny (ii. 7.) confidently believed that the heron had but one eye, per- 
haps he was no better informed upon its celestial than upon its physical 
habits. Swallows were the precursors of misfortune ; they sat on 
the tent of Pyrrhus, and on the mast of Antony. When the Syrian 
Antiochus was about to join battle with the Parthians, he disregarded 
the admonition of a swallow’s nest in his pavilion, and paid for his 
incredulity, or his carelessness, with no less than his life. The dove 
in company, was longed for; when single, it was despised. Sailors 
loved the swan, but she was naught to landmen. The evening crow 
of the cock struck joy into the ears of the listener; but evil were his 
stars who heard the hen attempt to emulate her mate. Of all birds the 
owl was the most hateful, if it screeched ; not so, if it was merely seen. 
Augury by the feeding of chickens, was the third division of the 
art. The puUarins, or feeder, had the charge of the cavea or coop. 
At the earliest break of dawn, the strictest silence being preserved, 
he threw grain to the birds. If they did not hurry from the coop, or 
if coming out they disregarded their food, or carelessly picked and 
scattered it, or cowered with their wings, or crowed and passed by 
it, the omen was of infinite terror; on the contrary, an eager haste Jo 
devour the grain, especially if from greediness it fell from their beaks 
and rebounded from the ground, making w'hat w as called the tripudium 
solis iimum, terram vel solum pavire^ i. e- fetire, shewed the especial 
favour of heaven. The profane jest of Publius Claudius, who drown- 
ed his chickens which refused to eat, bidding them at least to drink 
their fill, and his subsequent destruction, is recorded by Valerius 
Maximus, (i. 4.) and by Cicero, {Nat. Deor. ii. 3.) as a warning to 
all unbelieving generals. Any deceit practised by the pullarius 
reverted 'to his own head. Of this we have a memorable instance in 
the great battle between Papirius Cursor and the Sarnnites, in the 
year of Rome 459. So anxious were the troops for battle, that the 
pullarius dared to announce to the consul a tripudium solis timum^ 
although the chickens refused to eat. Papirius unhesitatingly gave 
