Chapter I.

1. The above describes the manner of reproduction in serpents, insects, and oviparous quadrupeds. All birds are oviparous, but the season of sexual intercourse and of bringing out their young is not the same in all; for some copulate and produce eggs at all seasons, as we may say, as the domestic fowl and the pigeon, for the domestic fowl lays eggs all the year round, except two months at the winter solstice. Some of the finest birds will lay sixty eggs before they want to sit, though these are not so fruitful as the more common kinds. The Adrianic fowls are very small, but they lay every day; but they are cruel, and often kill their chickens. Their colour is variegated. Some of the domestic birds lay twice a-day, and some have been known to lay so many eggs that they died very soon.

2. The domestic fowls, as I said, lay continually; but the pigeon, dove, trygon, and œnas lay twice a-year; and the pigeon ten times. The greatest number of birds lay in the spring; and some of them produce many young, and this in two ways; some producing their young often, as the pigeon; others producing many at a time, as the domestic fowl. All birds with crooked claws, except the cenchris,[189] lay but few eggs. This bird lays the most of any of its class; for it has been observed to produce four, and it even produces more. Some birds lay their eggs in nests; but those that do not fly, as partridges and quails, do not make nests, but lay their eggs on the ground and cover them over with rubbish. The lark and tetrix[190] do the same.

3. These birds make their nests in a place sheltered from the wind. That which the Beotians call ærops[191] is the only bird that makes its nests in caverns in the earth. The cichlæ[192] make nests of mud like swallows in the tops of trees; but they place them in order close to each other, so that from their proximity they look like a chain of nests. Among the birds which make solitary nests, the hoopoe makes no real nest, but lays its eggs in the stumps of hollow trees, without building at all. The coccyx[193] lays its eggs in houses and holes in rocks. The tetrix, which the Athenians call "urax," makes no nest on the ground or in trees, but in herbaceous plants.