For it is a bird greedy for seizing other birds, and therefore it is called 'accipiter,' that is, 'raptor' (plunderer). Hence too Paul the Apostle says (2 Corinthians 11.20): 'For you endure it, if anyone takes (accipit) from you'; that is, to say 'if anyone plunders,' he said 'if anyone takes.' Moreover, it is reported that hawks are unkind toward their own chicks; for when they have seen that the chicks are able to attempt flights, they offer them no food; but they beat them with their wings and cast them headlong from the nest, and drive them from tenderness on to plunder, lest perhaps when grown they should become sluggish. The 'capus' is so called in the Italic tongue from 'seizing' (capiendo). This our people call the falcon (falcon), because it has curved (incurvis) toes. The kite (milvus) is soft (mollis) both in strength and in flight, as it were a 'soft bird,' whence too it is named; yet it is most rapacious and always an ambusher of domestic birds.
The 'ossifragus' (bone-breaker) is the common name for the bird which drops bones from on high and breaks them. Hence too it received its name from 'breaking' (frangendo) bones. The turtledove (turtur) is named from its voice; a chaste bird, and always dwelling on the ridges of mountains and in desert solitudes. For it flees the dwellings and the company of men, and lingers in the woods. It is even reported that in winter, having lost its plumage, it dwells in the hollows of tree-trunks. The dove (columba), by contrast, loves human hospitality; it is always the winsome dweller of homes. Doves (columbae) are so called because they change their colors (colores) at each turning of their necks (colla); gentle birds, dwelling among the multitude of men, and without gall; the ancients used to call them the birds of Venus (Venerias), because they frequent nests, and conceive love with a kiss.
The wood-pigeon (palumbes)—so called because they are plump, from their fodder (pabulum); the common people call them 'titi'—is called a chaste bird from its habits, because it is the companion of chastity; for it is said that, having lost its bodily consort, it goes about solitary, and no longer seeks carnal union. The partridge (perdix) has its name from its voice, a crafty and unclean bird; for the male mounts upon the male, and headlong lust forgets its sex. It is so fraudulent, moreover, that it snatches the eggs of another and broods them; but the fraud does not have its fruit: for in the end, when the chicks have heard the voice of their own mother, by a certain natural instinct they abandon the one that brooded them and return to the very one that bore them. Quails (coturnices) are so called from the sound of their voice, which the Greeks call 'ortyges,' because they were first seen on the island of Ortygia.
These have their times of coming; for at summer's end they cross the seas. The one that leads the flock is called 'ortygometra.' The hawk, seeing it as it approaches the land, seizes it; and for this reason there is care among them all to solicit as leader one of a foreign kind, through which they may guard against the first perils. They have as their most welcome food the seeds of poisons; for which reason the ancients forbade eating them. For this animal alone, like man, suffers the falling sickness (epilepsy). The Greeks call the hoopoe 'upupa,' because it feeds on human dung and is nourished on stinking filth; a most foul bird, helmeted with prominent crests, always lingering in tombs and human excrement. Whoever anoints himself with its blood, on going to sleep, will see demons suffocating him.
The 'tuci,' which the Spaniards call 'ciculi,' are named from their own voice. These have their time of coming, being carried upon the shoulders of kites on account of their short and small flights, lest, wearied through the long stretches of air, they should fail. Their saliva produces cicadas. Sparrows (passeres) are tiny flying creatures, named from their smallness; whence too very little things are 'pusilli.' The blackbird (merula) was anciently called 'medula,' because it makes melody (modulet). Others say the blackbird is called 'merula' because it flies alone (sola volat), as it were 'flying purely' (mera volans). Although this bird is black in all places, in Achaia, however, it is white. The swallow (hirundo) is so called because it does not take its food while sitting, but catches and eats its food in the air; a chattering bird, flying through winding orbits and tortuous circuits, and most skillful in building nests and rearing its young;
having also something foreknowing, in that it deserts what is about to fall and does not seek out the roof-tops. It is also not attacked by birds of ill omen, nor is it ever their prey. It flies across the seas, and there it lingers through the winter. Thrushes (turdi) are named from their tardiness (tarditas); for at the border of winter they betake themselves back. The 'turdela' is as it were a larger thrush; from its droppings mistletoe (viscum) is thought to be generated. Hence too there was a proverb among the ancients: 'A bird excretes evil for itself.' The 'furfurio' is so named because it was formerly fed on spelt (far) ground into flour. The fig-peckers (ficedulae) are so called because they eat figs (ficus) most of all. This is set forth in that old little verse (Martial 13.49): 'Since the fig nourishes me, since I am fed on sweet grapes, why did the grape not rather give me my name?' The goldfinch (carduelus) is so called because it feeds on thorns and thistles (cardi);
whence too among the Greeks it is called 'acalanthis,' from 'akanthai,' that is, from the thorns on which it is nourished. The augurs, moreover, say that in the gesture and in the movement and in the flight and in the voice of birds signs are established. They call 'oscines' those birds which make an augury by mouth and by song; such as the raven, the crow, the woodpecker. The 'alites' are those which seem to show future things by their flight; and if these are unfavorable, they are called 'inebrae,' because they inhibit, that is, forbid; if favorable, they are called 'praepetes'; and they are 'praepetes' for this reason, because all birds when flying seek what is before them (priora petunt). They make a third kind of auguries among birds, which they call the common kind, mixed from both, that is, when birds give auguries by both mouth and flight. But it does not merit belief. And all kinds of birds are born twice.
For first the eggs are produced, and then by the warmth of the mother's body they are shaped and given life. Eggs (ova) are so called because they are moist (uvidus). Hence also the grape (uva), because it is full of moisture within. For that is 'humid' (humidum) which has moisture on the outside; 'moist' (uvidum), that which has it inside. Some, however, think that 'ovum' has a Greek origin for its name. They say it comes from 'oa', with the letter V removed. Now certain eggs are conceived by an empty wind; but these are not capable of generating, save only those that have been conceived by intercourse with the male and penetrated by the seminal spirit. They say the power of eggs is so great that wood soaked in it does not burn, nor is even a garment scorched against it. Mixed also with lime it is said to bind together fragments of glass. VIII. ON SMALL FLYING CREATURES.
Bees (apes) are so named either because they cling to one another by their feet, or because they are born without feet (a-pes). For afterwards they acquire both feet and wings. These clever creatures inhabit the dwellings assigned to them for the task of producing honey; they construct their homes with unspeakable skill, they store up honeycomb from various flowers, and with woven wax they fill their camps with countless offspring. They have an army and kings, they wage battles, they flee from smoke, and they are provoked to fury by an uproar. Many have found by experience that these are born from the carcasses of oxen. For to produce them, the flesh of slain calves is beaten, so that from the putrefied gore worms may be produced, which afterwards become bees. Strictly speaking, however, those born from oxen are called bees (apes), just as hornets (scabrones) come from horses, drones (fuci) from mules, and wasps (vespae) from asses.
The Greeks call 'costri' those that are produced larger in the outermost parts of the honeycombs, which some think to be kings. They are so called because they lead the camp (castra). The drone (fucus) is larger than a bee, smaller than a hornet. It is called 'fucus' because it eats up the labors of others, as if it were 'fagus' (from 'feeding'); for it feeds upon what it did not toil for. Concerning it Virgil says (Georgics 4.168): 'They keep off from the hives the drones, that lazy herd.' Wasps (vespae). Hornets (scabrones) are named from 'cabo', that is, from the horse (caballus), because they are produced from them. And just as hornets are born from the rotting flesh of horses, so from these in turn scarab-beetles (scarabaei) are often born; whence too they get their name. Earthbound scarabs resembling ticks are called bulls (tauri). The buprestis is a small creature in Italy very like a scarab, with long feet.
It especially deceives the ox among the grasses, whence too it has its name (bu-prestis); and when swallowed, upon touching the gall it so inflames the animal that it bursts. The glow-worm (cicindela) is a kind of scarab; so called because it shines as it walks or flies. Cockroaches (blattae) are named from their color (of purple, blatteum), inasmuch as when caught they even stain the hand; whence they speak of a purple color (blatteus). But this creature cannot bear to see the light, being the opposite of the fly; for the fly is light-seeking (lucipeta), and the cockroach light-fleeing (lucifuga); for it moves about only by night. Butterflies (papiliones) are little winged creatures that especially abound among flowering mallows, and which cause little worms to be born from their dung. The locust (locusta) is so called because it has long feet like a spear (asta); whence too the Greeks call it, both the sea and the land kind, 'astakon'. Cicadas (cicades) are born from the spittle of cuckoos (ciculi).
These are mute in Italy among the Rhegians, and nowhere else. The fly (musca) comes from a Greek word, as does the mouse (mus). These, like bees, when killed in water sometimes come back to life after the space of a single hour. The 'cynomya' is so called in Greek, that is, the dog-fly; for 'kyon' in Greek means dog. The gnat (culex) is named from its sting (aculeus), because it sucks blood. For it has in its mouth a pipe like a goad, with which it bores the flesh to drink the blood. Sciniphs are the tiniest of flies, very troublesome with their stings. By this as a third plague the proud people of the Egyptians was smitten. The gadfly (oestrus) is a creature of the herds, very troublesome with its stings. 'Oestrus' is Greek, which in Latin is 'asilus' and commonly called 'tabanus'. 'Bibiones' are those born in wine, which people commonly call 'mustiones' from the must (mustum).
Whence Afranius says (407): 'When you look at me and begin to chat, gnats fly out from your mouth into your eyes.' The weevil (gurgulio) is so called because it is almost nothing but a gullet (guttur).