Chapter XVII.

1. Among the herons, as it was before observed, the black heron copulates with difficulty, but it is an ingenious bird. It carries its food about, and is skilful in procuring it. It works during the day. Its colour, however, is bad, and its stomach always fluid. Of the other two (for there are three kinds of them), the white heron is beautifully coloured and copulates without pain, and builds its nest and attends its young carefully in trees. It inhabits marshes and lakes, plains and meadows. The bittern, which is called ocnus (the idle), is said in fables to have been originally a slave. Its name indicates its very idle disposition.

2. The herons live in this manner. The bird called poyx is peculiar, for it is its disposition to eat the eyes of other creatures, and is therefore the enemy of the harpa, which lives upon the same food.