The hybris, said by some to be the same as the eagle-owl, is never seen by daylight, as it is dim-sighted, but during the night it hunts like the eagle; it will fight the eagle with such desperation that the two combatants are often captured alive by shepherds; it lays two eggs, and, like 1256
others we have mentioned, it builds on rocks and in caverns. Cranes also fight so desperately among themselves as to be caught when fighting, for they will not leave off; the crane lays two eggs.
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The jay has a great variety of notes: indeed, might almost say it had a different note for every day in the year. It lays about nine eggs; builds its nest on trees, out of hair and tags of wool; when acorns are getting scarce, it lays up a store of them in hiding.
It is a common story of the stork that the old birds are fed by their grateful progeny. Some tell a similar story of the bee-eater, and declare that the parents are fed by their young not only when growing old, but at an early period, as soon as the young are capable of feeding them; and the parent-birds stay inside the nest. The under part of the bird’s wing is pale yellow; the upper part is dark blue, like that of the halcyon; the tips of the wings are About autumn-time it lays six or seven eggs, in overhanging banks where the soil is soft; there it burrows into the ground to a depth of six feet.
The greenfinch, so called from the colour of its belly, is as large as a lark; it lays four or five eggs, builds its nest out of the plant called com-frey, pulling it up by the roots, and makes an under-mattress to lie on of hair and wool. The blackbird and the jay build their nests after the same fashion. The nest of the penduline tit shows great mechanical skill; it has the appearance of a ball of flax, and the hole for entry is very small.
People who live where the bird comes from say that there exists a cinnamon bird which brings the cinnamon from some unknown localities, and builds its nest out of it; it builds on high trees on the slender top branches. They say that the inhabitants attach leaden weights to the tips of their arrows and therewith bring down the nests, and from the inter-texture collect the cinnamon sticks.
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The halcyon is not much larger than the sparrow. Its colour is dark blue, green, and light purple; the whole body and wings, and especially parts about the neck, show these colours in a mixed way, without any 1257
colour being sharply defined; the beak is light green, long and slender: such, then, is the look of the bird. Its nest is like sea-balls, i.e. the things that by the name of halosachne or seafoam, only the colour is not the same. The colour of the nest is light red, and the shape is that of the long-necked gourd. The nests are larger than the largest sponge, though they vary in size; they are roofed over, and great part of them is solid and great part hollow. If you use a sharp knife it is not easy to cut the nest through; but if you cut it, and at the same time bruise it with your hand, it will soon crumble to pieces, like the halosachne. The opening is small, just enough for a tiny entrance, so that even if the nest upset the sea does not enter in; the hollow channels are like those in sponges. It is not known for certain of what material the nest is constructed; it is possibly made of the backbones of the gar-fish; for, by the way, the bird lives on fish. Besides living on the shore, it ascends fresh-water streams. It lays generally about five eggs, and lays eggs all its life long, beginning to do so at the age of four months.
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The hoopoe usually constructs its nest out of human excrement. It changes its appearance in summer and in winter, as in fact do the great majority of wild birds. (The titmouse is said to lay a very large quantity of eggs: next to the ostrich the blackheaded tit is said by some to lay the largest number of eggs; seventeen eggs have been seen; it lays, however, more than twenty; it is said always to lay an odd number. Like others we have mentioned, it builds in trees; it feeds on caterpillars.) A peculiarity of this bird and of the nightingale is that the outer extremity of the tongue is not sharp-pointed.
The aegithus finds its food with ease, has many young, and walks with a limp. The golden oriole is apt at learning, is clever at making a living, but is awkward in flight and has an ugly plumage.
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The reed-warbler makes its living as easily as any other bird, sits in summer in a shady spot facing the wind, in winter in a sunny and sheltered place among reeds in a marsh; it is small in size, with a 1258
pleasant note. The so-called chatterer has a pleasant note, beautiful plumage, makes a living cleverly, and is graceful in form; it appears to be alien to our country; at all events it is seldom seen at a distance from its own immediate home.
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The crake is quarrelsome, clever at making a living, but in other ways an unlucky bird. The bird called sitta is quarrelsome, but clever and tidy, makes its living with ease, and for its knowingness is regarded as un-canny; it has a numerous brood, of which it is fond, and lives by pecking the bark of trees. The aegolius-owl flies by night, is seldom seen by day; like others we have mentioned, it lives on cliffs or in caverns; it feeds on two kinds of food; it has a strong hold on life and is full of resource. The tree-creeper is a little bird, of fearless disposition; it lives among trees, feeds on caterpillars, makes a living with ease, and has a loud clear note.
The acanthis finds its food with difficulty; its plumage is poor, but its note is musical.
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Of the herons, the ashen-coloured one, as has been said, unites with the female not without pain; it is full of resource, carries its food with it, is eager in the quest of it, and works by day; its plumage is poor, and its excrement is always wet. Of the other two species-for there are three in all-the white heron has handsome plumage, unites without harm to itself with the female, builds a nest and lays its eggs neatly in trees; it frequents marshes and lakes and Plains and meadow land. The speckled heron, which is nicknamed ‘the skulker’, is said in folklore stories to be of servile origin, and, as its nickname implies, it is the laziest bird of the three species. Such are the habits of herons. The bird that is called the poynx has this peculiarity, that it is more prone than any other bird to peck at the eyes of an assailant or its prey; it is at war with the harpy, as the two birds live on the same food.
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There are two kinds of owsels; the one is black, and is found everywhere, the other is quite white, about the same size as the other, and with the same pipe. This latter is found on Cyllene in Arcadia, and is found nowhere else. The laius, or blue-thrush, is like the black owsel, only a little smaller; it lives on cliffs or on tile roofings; it has not a red beak as the black owsel has.
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Of thrushes there are three species. One is the misselthrush; it feeds only on mistletoe and resin; it is about the size of the jay. A second is the song-thrush; it has a sharp pipe, and is about the size of the owsel. There is another species called the Illas; it is the smallest species of the three, and is less variegated in plumage than the others.
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There is a bird that lives on rocks, called the blue-bird from its colour.
It is comparatively common in Nisyros, and is somewhat less than the owsel and a little bigger than the chaffinch. It has large claws, and climbs on the face of the rocks. It is steel-blue all over; its beak is long and slender; its legs are short, like those of the woodpecker.
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The oriole is yellow all over; it is not visible during winter, but puts in an appearance about the time of the summer solstice, and departs again at the rising of Arcturus; it is the size of the turtle-dove. The so-called soft-head (or shrike) always settles on one and the same branch, where it falls a prey to the birdcatcher. Its head is big, and composed of gristle; it is a little smaller than the thrush; its beak is strong, small, and round; it is ashen-coloured all over; is fleet of foot, but slow of wing. The bird-catcher usually catches it by help of the owl.
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There is also the pardalus. As a rule, it is seen in flocks and not singly; it is ashen-coloured all over, and about the size of the birds last described; it is fleet of foot and strong of wing, and its pipe is loud and high-pitched. The collyrion (or fieldfare) feeds on the same food as the owsel; is of the same size as the above mentioned birds; and is trapped usually in the winter. All these birds are found at all times. Further, there are the birds that live as a rule in towns, the raven and the crow. These also are visible at all seasons, never shift their place of abode, and never go into winter quarters.
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Of daws there are three species. One is the chough; it is as large as the crow, but has a red beak. There is another, called the ‘wolf’; and further there is the little daw, called the ‘railer’. There is another kind of daw found in Lybia and Phrygia, which is web-footed.
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Of larks there are two kinds. One lives on the ground and has a crest on its head; the other is gregarious, and not sporadic like the first; it is, however, of the same coloured plumage, but is smaller, and has no crest; it is an article of human food.
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The woodcock is caught with nets in gardens. It is about the size of a barn-door hen; it has a long beak, and in plumage is like the francolin-partridge. It runs quickly, and is pretty easily domesticated. The starling is speckled; it is of the same size as the owsel.
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Of the Egyptian ibis there are two kinds, the white and the black. The white ones are found over Egypt, excepting in Pelusium; the black ones are found in Pelusium, and nowhere else in Egypt.
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Of the little horned owls there are two kinds, and one is visible at all seasons, and for that reason has the nickname of ‘all-the-year-round owl’; it is not sufficiently palatable to come to table; another species makes its appearance sometimes in the autumn, is seen for a single day or at the most for two days, and is regarded as a table delicacy; it scarcely differs from the first species save only in being fatter; it has no note, but the other species has. With regard to their origin, nothing is known from ocular observation; the only fact known for certain is that they are first seen when a west wind is blowing.
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The cuckoo, as has been said elsewhere, makes no nest, but deposits its eggs in an alien nest, generally in the nest of the ring-dove, or on the ground in the nest of the hypolais or lark, or on a tree in the nest of the green linnet. it lays only one egg and does not hatch it itself, but the mother-bird in whose nest it has deposited it hatches and rears it; and, as they say, this mother bird, when the young cuckoo has grown big, thrusts her own brood out of the nest and lets them perish; others say that this mother-bird kills her own brood and gives them to the alien to devour, despising her own young owing to the beauty of the cuckoo.
Personal observers agree in telling most of these stories, but are not in agreement as to the instruction of the young. Some say that the mother-cuckoo comes and devours the brood of the rearing mother; others say that the young cuckoo from its superior size snaps up the food brought before the smaller brood have a chance, and that in consequence the 1262
smaller brood die of hunger; others say that, by its superior strength, it actually kills the other ones whilst it is being reared up with them. The cuckoo shows great sagacity in the disposal of its progeny; the fact is, the mother cuckoo is quite conscious of her own cowardice and of the fact that she could never help her young one in an emergency, and so, for the security of the young one, she makes of him a supposititious child in an alien nest. The truth is, this bird is pre-eminent among birds in the way of cowardice; it allows itself to be pecked at by little birds, and flies away from their attacks.
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It has already been stated that the footless bird, which some term the cypselus, resembles the swallow; indeed, it is not easy to distinguish between the two birds, excepting in the fact that the cypselus has feathers on the shank. These birds rear their young in long cells made of mud, and furnished with a hole just big enough for entry and exit; they build under cover of some roofing-under a rock or in a cavern-for protection against animals and men.
The so-called goat-sucker lives on mountains; it is a little larger than the owsel, and less than the cuckoo; it lays two eggs, or three at the most, and is of a sluggish disposition. It flies up to the she-goat and sucks its milk, from which habit it derives its name; it is said that, after it has sucked the teat of the animal, the teat dries up and the animal goes blind.
It is dim-sighted in the day-time, but sees well enough by night.
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In narrow circumscribed districts where the food would be insufficient for more birds than two, ravens are only found in isolated pairs; when their young are old enough to fly, the parent couple first eject them from the nest, and by and by chase them from the neighbourhood. The raven lays four or five eggs. About the time when the mercenaries under Medius were slaughtered at Pharsalus, the districts about Athens and the Peloponnese were left destitute of ravens, from which it would appear that these birds have some means of intercommunicating with one another.
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Of eagles there are several species. One of them, called ‘the white-tailed eagle’, is found on low lands, in groves, and in the neighbourhood of cities; some call it the ‘heron-killer’. It is bold enough to fly to mountains and the interior of forests. The other eagles seldom visit groves or low-lying land. There is another species called the ‘plangus’; it ranks second in point of size and strength; it lives in mountain combes and glens, and by marshy lakes, and goes by the name of ‘duck-killer’ and
‘swart-eagle.’ It is mentioned by Homer in his account of the visit made by Priam to the tent of Achilles. There is another species with black Plumage, the smallest but boldest of all the kinds. It dwells on mountains or in forests, and is called ‘the black-eagle’ or ‘the hare-killer’; it is the only eagle that rears its young and thoroughly takes them out with it. It is swift of flight, is neat and tidy in its habits, too proud for jealousy, fearless, quarrelsome; it is also silent, for it neither whimpers nor screams.
There is another species, the percnopterus, very large, with white head, very short wings, long tail-feathers, in appearance like a vulture. It goes by the name of ‘mountain-stork’ or ‘half-eagle’. It lives in groves; has all the bad qualities of the other species, and none of the good ones; for it lets itself be chased and caught by the raven and the other birds. It is clumsy in its movements, has difficulty in procuring its food, preys on dead animals, is always hungry, and at all times whining and screaming.
There is another species, called the ‘sea-eagle’ or ‘osprey’. This bird has a large thick neck, curved wings, and broad tailfeathers; it lives near the sea, grasps its prey with its talons, and often, from inability to carry it, tumbles down into the water. There is another species called the ‘true-bred’; people say that these are the only true-bred birds to be found, that all other birds-eagles, hawks, and the smallest birds-are all spoilt by the interbreeding of different species. The true-bred eagle is the largest of all eagles; it is larger than the phene; is half as large again as the ordinary eagle, and has yellow plumage; it is seldom seen, as is the case with the so-called cymindis. The time for an eagle to be on the wing in search of prey is from midday to evening; in the morning until the market-hour it remains on the nest. In old age the upper beak of the eagle grows gradually longer and more crooked, and the bird dies eventually of starvation; there is a folklore story that the eagle is thus punished because it once was a man and refused entertainment to a stranger. The eagle puts aside 1264
its superfluous food for its young; for owing to the difficulty in procuring food day by day, it at times may come back to the nest with nothing.
If it catch a man prowling about in the neighbourhood of its nest, it will strike him with its wings and scratch him with its talons. The nest is built not on low ground but on an elevated spot, generally on an inaccessible ledge of a cliff; it does, however, build upon a tree. The young are fed until they can fly; hereupon the parent-birds topple them out of the nest, and chase them completely out of the locality. The fact is that a pair of eagles demands an extensive space for its maintenance, and consequently cannot allow other birds to quarter themselves in close neighbourhood. They do not hunt in the vicinity of their nest, but go to a great distance to find their prey. When the eagle has captured a beast, it puts it down without attempting to carry it off at once; if on trial it finds the burden too heavy, it will leave it. When it has spied a hare, it does not swoop on it at once, but lets it go on into the open ground; neither does it descend to the ground at one swoop, but goes gradually down from higher flights to lower and lower: these devices it adopts by way of security against the stratagem of the hunter. It alights on high places by reason of the difficulty it experiences in soaring up from the level ground; it flies high in the air to have the more extensive view; from its high flight it is said to be the only bird that resembles the gods. Birds of prey, as a rule, seldom alight upon rock, as the crookedness of their talons prevents a stable footing on hard stone. The eagle hunts hares, fawns, foxes, and in general all such animals as he can master with ease.
It is a long-lived bird, and this fact might be inferred from the length of time during which the same nest is maintained in its place.
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In Scythia there is found a bird as large as the great bustard. The female lays two eggs, but does not hatch them, but hides them in the skin of a hare or fox and leaves them there, and, when it is not in quest of prey, it keeps a watch on them on a high tree; if any man tries to climb the tree, it fights and strikes him with its wing, just as eagles do.
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The owl and the night-raven and all the birds see poorly in the daytime seek their prey in the night, but not all the night through, but at evening and dawn. Their food consists of mice, lizards, chafers and the like little creatures. The so-called phene, or lammergeier, is fond of its young, provides its food with ease, fetches food to its nest, and is of a kindly disposition. It rears its own young and those of the eagle as well; for when the eagle ejects its young from the nest, this bird catches them up as they fall and feeds them. For the eagle, by the way, ejects the young birds prematurely, before they are able to feed themselves, or to fly. It appears to do so from jealousy; for it is by nature jealous, and is so ravenous as to grab furiously at its food; and when it does grab at its food, it grabs it in large morsels. It is accordingly jealous of the young birds as they approach maturity, since they are getting good appetites, and so it scratches them with its talons. The young birds fight also with one another, to secure a morsel of food or a comfortable position, whereupon the mother-bird beats them and ejects them from the nest; the young ones scream at this treatment, and the phene hearing them catches them as they fall. The phene has a film over its eyes and sees badly, but the sea-eagle is very keen-sighted, and before its young are fledged tries to make them stare at the sun, and beats the one that refuses to do so, and twists him back in the sun’s direction; and if one of them gets watery eyes in the process, it kills him, and rears the other. It lives near the sea, and feeds, as has been said, on sea-birds; when in pursuit of them it catches them one by one, watching the moment when the bird rises to the surface from its dive. When a sea-bird, emerging from the water, sees the sea-eagle, he in terror dives under, intending to rise again elsewhere; the eagle, however, owing to its keenness of vision, keeps flying after him until he either drowns the bird or catches him on the surface. The eagle never attacks these birds when they are in a swarm, for they keep him off by raising a shower of water-drops with their wings.
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The cepphus is caught by means of sea-foam; the bird snaps at the foam, and consequently fishermen catch it by sluicing with showers of sea-water. These birds grow to be plump and fat; their flesh has a good odour, excepting the hinder quarters, which smell of shoreweed.
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Of hawks, the strongest is the buzzard; the next in point of courage is the merlin; and the circus ranks third; other diverse kinds are the asteri-as, the pigeon-hawk, and the pternis; the broaded-winged hawk is called the half-buzzard; others go by the name of hobby-hawk, or sparrow-hawk, or ‘smooth-feathered’, or ‘toad-catcher’. Birds of this latter species find their food with very little difficulty, and flutter along the ground.
Some say that there are ten species of hawks, all differing from one another. One hawk, they say, will strike and grab the pigeon as it rests on the ground, but never touch it while it is in flight; another hawk attacks the pigeon when it is perched upon a tree or any elevation, but never touches it when it is on the ground or on the wing; other hawks attack their prey only when it is on the wing. They say that pigeons can distinguish the various species: so that, when a hawk is an assailant, if it be one that attacks its prey when the prey is on the wing, the pigeon will sit still; if it be one that attacks sitting prey, the pigeon will rise up and fly away.
In Thrace, in the district sometimes called that of Cedripolis, men hunt for little birds in the marshes with the aid of hawks. The men with sticks in their hands go beating at the reeds and brushwood to frighten the birds out, and the hawks show themselves overhead and frighten them down. The men then strike them with their sticks and capture them.
They give a portion of their booty to the hawks; that is, they throw some of the birds up in the air, and the hawks catch them.
In the neighbourhood of Lake Maeotis, it is said, wolves act in concert with the fishermen, and if the fishermen decline to share with them, they tear their nets in pieces as they lie drying on the shore of the lake.
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So much for the habits of birds.
In marine creatures, also, one In marine creatures, also, one may observe many ingenious devices adapted to the circumstances of their lives.
For the accounts commonly given of the so-called fishing-frog are quite true; as are also those given of the torpedo. The fishing-frog has a set of 1267
filaments that project in front of its eyes; they are long and thin like hairs, and are round at the tips; they lie on either side, and are used as baits.
Accordingly, when the animal stirs up a place full of sand and mud and conceals itself therein, it raises the filaments, and, when the little fish strike against them, it draws them in underneath into its mouth. The torpedo narcotizes the creatures that it wants to catch, overpowering them by the power of shock that is resident in its body, and feeds upon them; it also hides in the sand and mud, and catches all the creatures that swim in its way and come under its narcotizing influence. This phenomenon has been actually observed in operation. The sting-ray also conceals itself, but not exactly in the same way. That the creatures get their living by this means is obvious from the fact that, whereas they are peculiarly inactive, they are often caught with mullets in their interior, the swiftest of fishes. Furthermore, the fishing-frog is unusually thin when he is caught after losing the tips of his filaments, and the torpedo is known to cause a numbness even in human beings. Again, the hake, the ray, the flat-fish, and the angelfish burrow in the sand, and after concealing themselves angle with the filaments on their mouths, that fishermen call their fishing-rods, and the little creatures on which they feed swim up to the filaments taking them for bits of sea-weed, such as they feed upon.
Wherever an anthias-fish is seen, there will be no dangerous creatures in the vicinity, and sponge-divers will dive in security, and they call these signal-fishes ‘holy-fish’. It is a sort of perpetual coincidence, like the fact that wherever snails are present you may be sure there is neither pig nor partridge in the neighbourhood; for both pig and partridge eat up the snails.
The sea-serpent resembles the conger in colour and shape, but is of lesser bulk and more rapid in its movements. If it be caught and thrown away, it will bore a hole with its snout and burrow rapidly in the sand; its snout, by the way, is sharper than that of ordinary serpents. The so-called sea-scolopendra, after swallowing the hook, turns itself inside out until it ejects it, and then it again turns itself outside in. The sea-scolopendra, like the land-scolopendra, will come to a savoury bait; the creature does not bite with its teeth, but stings by contact with its entire body, like the so-called sea-nettle. The so-called fox-shark, when it finds it has swallowed the hook, tries to get rid of it as the scolopendra does, but not in the same way; in other words, it runs up the fishing-line, and bites it off short; it is caught in some districts in deep and rapid waters, with night-lines.
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The bonitos swarm together when they espy a dangerous creature, and the largest of them swim round it, and if it touches one of the shoal they try to repel it; they have strong teeth. Amongst other large fish, a lamia-shark, after falling in amongst a shoal, has been seen to be covered with wounds.
Of river-fish, the male of the sheat-fish is remarkably attentive to the young. The female after parturition goes away; the male stays and keeps on guard where the spawn is most abundant, contenting himself with keeping off all other little fishes that might steal the spawn or fry, and this he does for forty or fifty days, until the young are sufficiently grown to make away from the other fishes for themselves. The fishermen can tell where he is on guard: for, in warding off the little fishes, he makes a rush in the water and gives utterance to a kind of muttering noise. He is so earnest in the performance of his parental duties that the fishermen at times, if the eggs be attached to the roots of water-plants deep in the water, drag them into as shallow a place as possible; the male fish will still keep by the young, and, if it so happen, will be caught by the hook when snapping at the little fish that come by; if, however, he be sensible by experience of the danger of the hook, he will still keep by his charge, and with his extremely strong teeth will bite the hook in pieces.