THE CROW, THE RAVEN AND THE OWL.
The crow, among other kinds of food, feeds upon nuts. If these prove too
hard for his beak to break, the crow flies to a great height, and then
lets them fall again and again upon the stones and tiles beneath, until
at last the shell is cracked, and the bird is able to open them. The
crow is a bird of a very ill-omened garrulity, though it has been highly
praised by some. It is observed, that from the rising of the
constellation Arcturus until the arrival of the swallow, it is rarely to
be seen about the sacred groves and temples of Minerva, and in Athens
not at all. It is the only bird that continues to feed its young for
some time after they have begun to fly. The crow is most inauspicious at
the time of incubation, or, in other words, just after the summer
solstice.
All the other birds of the same kind--like the raven, for example--drive
their young ones from their nest, and compel them to fly. In small
hamlets there are never more than two pairs to be found; and in the
neighborhood of Crannon, in Thessaly, never more than one, the parents
always quitting the spot to give place to their offspring. Ravens are
the only birds that seem to have any comprehension of the meaning of
their auspices; for when the guests of Medus were assassinated, they all
took their departure from Peloponnesus and the region of Attica. They
are of the very worst omen when they swallow their voice, as if they
were being choked.
The birds of the night--the owlet, the horned owl, and the
screech-owl--have crooked talons, and the sight of all is defective in
the day-time. The horned owl is especially funereal, and is greatly
abhorred in all auspices of a public nature; it inhabits desolate spots
of a frightful and inaccessible nature: the monster of the night, its
voice is heard, not with any tuneful note, but emitting a sort of
shriek. It is therefore looked upon as a direful omen to see it in a
city. I know, however, for a fact, that it is not portentous of evil
when it settles on the top of a private house. It cannot fly whither it
wishes in a straight line, but is always carried forward by a sidelong
movement. A horned owl entered the very sanctuary of the Capitol, in the
consulship of Palpelius and Pedanius; in consequence of which, Rome was
purified on the nones of March in that year.
An inauspicious bird also is that known as the "incendiary," on account
of which we find in the Annals, the City has had to be repeatedly
purified; as, for instance, in the consulship of Cassius and Marius, in
which year also it was purified, in consequence of a horned owl being
seen. What kind of bird this incendiary[170] was, we do not find stated,
nor is it known by tradition. Some persons explain the term this way;
they say that the name "incendiary" was applied to every bird that was
seen carrying a burning coal from the pyre, or altar.
The owlet shows considerable shrewdness in its engagements with other
birds; for when surrounded by too great a number, it throws itself on
its back, resists with its feet, and rolling up its body into a mass,
defends itself with the beak and talons, until the hawk, attracted by a
certain natural affinity, comes to its assistance, and takes its share
in the combat. Nigidius says that the owlet has nine different notes.