A Year with the Birds

Georg. i. 120, 139, 156, 271.

67

Cic. de Div. i. 29.

68

N. II. x. 32.

69

Then the crow
With full voice, good-for-nought, inviting rain,
Stalks on the dry sand mateless and alone.

    – Georg. i. 388.

70

Soft then the voice of rooks from indrawn throat
Thrice, four times, o’er repeated, and full oft
On their high cradles, by some hidden joy
Gladdened beyond their wont, in bustling throngs
Among the leaves they riot; so sweet it is
When showers are spent, their own loved nests again
And tender brood to visit.

    – Georg. i. 410.

71

Sundevall (Thierarten des Aristoteles, p. 123) pronounces κόραξ to have been our Raven.

72

See Newton’s Yarrell, ii. 290.

73

Whose weedy water feeds the snow-white swan.

    – Georg. ii. 199.

74

With that a great noise rises aloft in diverse contention, even as when flocks of birds haply settle on a lofty grove, and swans utter their hoarse cry among the vocal pools in the fish-filled river of Padusa.

    – Aen. xi. 456; cp. vii. 700.

75

When cool eve
Allays the air, and dewy moonbeams slake
The forest glades, with halcyon’s voice the shore
And every thicket with the goldfinch rings.

    – Georg. iii. 338.

76

Not to the Sun’s warmth there upon the shore
Do halcyons dear to Thetis ope their wings.

    – Georg. i. 398.

77

This exception is singular, as Pliny seems to depend on Aristotle for everything else which he tells about the bird. I am inclined to think that in this case Pliny must have supplemented his master’s account from his own observation. He had a villa on the bay of Naples, which bay was probably the ‘littus’ referred to by Virgil; and both may here have seen the bird on the shore.

78

I have seen a photograph of this coin, and satisfied myself that the bird was meant for a Tern. But I have so far been unable to discover any connection between Eretria and the ἀλκυὼν. Sundevall is confident that Aristotle’s bird is the Kingfisher.

79

E.g. Aristotle gives, and Pliny copies from him, an extraordinary account of the nest and eggs. N. H. ix. 14. See Note C (#pgepubid00008), at end of volume.

80

For the connection between ἄκανθα and ἀκαλανθίς see Conington’s note on Georg. iii. 338.

81

Theophrastus, for example, applies it to the Egyptian mimosa, the thorns of which lately proved so damaging to our troops in the Soudan. (Lenz, Botanik der Griechen, p. 735.)

82

There is another reading, ‘et acanthida.’

83

Κακόβιοι καὶ κακόχροοι, φωνὴν μέντοι λιγυρὰν ἔχουσιν. —Hist. Anim. ix. 17.

84

A sibilant trill is probably what is meant in a passage of the Greek Anthology (i. 175), λιγυρὸν βομβεῦσιν ἀκανθίδες; suggesting the Grasshopper Warbler (see p. 154 (#x_5_i17)), or the Sedge-warbler.

85