Feeding the wretched miserable phaps,
Entangled as to its poor broken sides
Within the winnowing spokes.
PIGEONS.
And in his Philoctetes he uses the word in the genitive case plural, φαβῶν. "The œnas, then," says Aristotle, "is something larger than the pigeon, and it has a puce-coloured plumage; but the phaps is something between the pigeon and the œnas. And the species called phassa is about as large as the common cock, but of the colour of ashes; and the turtle-dove is less than all the other species, and is of a cinder-colour. And this last is only seen in the summer, and during the winter it keeps in its hole. Now, the phaps and the common pigeon are always to be seen, but the œnas is only visible in the autumn. And the species called the phassa is said to be longer lived than any of the others; for it lives thirty or forty years. And the cock birds never leave the hens to the day of their death, nor do the hens ever desert the cock: but when one dies the other remains solitary: and crows, and ravens, and jackdaws all do the same thing. And in every kind of the genus pigeon, both male and female sit on the eggs in turn; and when the chickens are hatched, the cock bird spits upon them to prevent their being fascinated. And the hen lays two eggs, the first of which produces a cock and the second a hen. And they lay at every season of the year; so that they lay ten or eleven times a-year; and in Egypt they lay twelve times; for the hen conceives again the very next day to that in which it lays." And further on, in the same book, Aristotle says that the kind called περιστερὰ differs from the πελειὰς, and the πελειὰς is the least of the two. And the πελειὰς is easily tamed; but the περιστερὰ is black, and small, and has red rough legs; on which account no one keeps them. But he mentions a peculiarity of the species called περιστερὰ, that they kiss one another when courting, and that if the males neglect this, the hens do not admit their embraces. However, old doves do not go through this formality; but omit the kisses and still succeed in their suit, but the younger ones always kiss before they proceed to action. And the hens, too, make love to one another, when there is no cock at hand, kissing one another beforehand. But still, as there are no real results, the eggs which they lay never produce chickens. The Dorians, however, consider the πελειὰς and the περιστερὰ as identical; and Sophron uses the two words as synonymous in his Female Actresses. But Callimachus, in his treatise on Birds, speaks of the pyrallis, the dove, the wood-pigeon, and the turtle-dove, as all different from one another.
51. But Alexander the Myndian says, that the pigeon never lifts up his head when it drinks, as the turtle-dove does; and that it never utters any sound in the winter except when it is very fine weather. It is said, also, that when the species called œnas has eaten the seed of the mistletoe, and then leaves its droppings on any tree, mistletoe after that grows upon that tree. But Daïmachus, in his history of India, says that pigeons of an apple-green colour are found in India. And Charon of Lampsacus, in his history of Persia, speaking of Mardonius, and of the losses which the Persian army sustained off Mount Athos, writes as follows—"And that was the first time that white pigeons were ever seen by the Greeks; as they had never existed in that country." And Aristotle says, that the pigeons, when their young are born, eat a lot of earth impregnated with salt, and then open the mouths of their young and spit the salt into them; and by this means prepare them to swallow and digest their food.
And at Eryx in Sicily, there is a certain time which the Sicilians call The Departure, at which time they say that the Goddess is departing into Africa: and at this time all the pigeons about the place disappear, as if they had accompanied the Goddess on her journey.And after nine days, when the festival called καταγώγια, that is to say The Return, is celebrated, after one pigeon has first arrived, flying across the sea like an avant-courier, and has flown into the temple, the rest follow speedily. And on this, all the inhabitants around, who are comfortably off, feast; and the rest clap their hands for joy. And at that time the whole place smells of butter, which they use as a sort of token of the return of the Goddess. But Autocrates, in his history of Achaia, says that Jupiter once changed his form into that of a pigeon, when he was in love with a maiden in Ægium, whose name was Phthia. But the Attic writers use the word also in the masculine gender, περιστερός. Alexis, in his People Running together, says—
For I am the white pigeon (περιστερὸς) of Venus;
But as for Bacchus, he knows nothing more
Than how to get well drunk; and nothing cares
Whether 'tis new wine that he drinks or old.
DUCKS.
But in his play of the Rhodian, or the Woman Caressing, he uses the word in the feminine gender; and says in that passage that the Sicilian pigeons are superior to all others—
Breeding within some pigeons from Sicily,
The fairest shaped of all their species.
And Pherecrates, in his Painters, says—