236 PREFACE. 
about birds in relation to their prognoftic na* 
ture. Henceforward then, i. e. from the time 
of Hefiod, they feem to have been looked upon 
as no longer capable of direding the hufband- 
man in his rural affairs, but they did not how- 
ever lofe their influence and dignity ; nay, on 
the contrary, they feem to have gained daily a 
more than ordinary, and even wonderful autho- 
rity, till at laft no affair of confequence, either 
of private or public concern, was undertaken 
without confulting them. They were looked upon 
as the interpreters of the gods, and thofe who 
were qualified to underfland their oracles were 
held among the chief men in the Greek and Ro- 
man ftates, and became the affeffors of kings, and 
even of Jupiter himfelf *. However abfurd fuch 
an inflitution as a college of augurs may appear 
in our eyes, yet like all other extravagant infti- 
tutions, it had in part its origin from nature. 
When men confidered the wonderful migration 
of birds, how they difappeared at once, and ap- 
peared again at dated times, and could give no 
guefs where they went, it was almofl natural to 
fuppofe, that they retired fomewhere out of the 
iphere of this earth, and perhaps approached the 
astherial regions, where they might converfe with 
the gods, and thence be enabled to predid 
events. This i fay was almofl natural for a fu- 
perftitious people to imagine, at lead to believe, 
* Jovi optimo maximo fe confiliarum atque adminiltrum da- 
tum meminerit augur. Cicero. 
Lacedasmonii reges augurem afTdTorem habuerunt. Id. 
Aves internuncise Jovis. Id. 
Sacerdoium collegium vel nomine folenne. Piki. Nat. Hilb 
{peaking of the augurs. 
as 
