Vertitur in volucrem cui sunt pro vertice Cristæ,
Protinus immodicum surgit pro cuspide rostrum
Nomen Epops volucri, facies armata videtur.
For, in this military shape, he is aptly phancied even still revengefully to pursue his hated Wife Progne: in the propriety of his Note crying out, Pou, pou, ubi, ubi, or Where are you?
Nor are we singly deceived in the nominal translation of this Bird: in many other Animals we commit the like mistake. So Gracculus is rendred a Jay, which Bird notwithstanding must be of a dark colour according to that of Martial,
Sed quandam volo nocte nigriorem
Formica, pice, Gracculo, cicada.
Halcyon[259] is rendred a King-fisher, a Bird commonly known among us, and by Zoographers and Naturals the same is named Ispida, a well coloured Bird frequenting Streams and Rivers, building in holes of Pits, like some Martins, about the end of the Spring; in whose Nests we have found little else than innumerable small Fish Bones, and white round Eggs of a smooth and polished surface, whereas the true Alcyon is a Sea Bird, makes an handsome Nest floating upon the Water, and breedeth in the Winter.
That Nysus should be rendred either an Hobby or a Sparrow Hawk, in the Fable of Nysus and Scylla in Ovid, because we are much to seek in the distinction of Hawks according to their old denominations, we shall not much contend, and may allow a favourable latitude therein: but that the Ciris or Bird into which Scylla was turned should be translated a Lark, it can hardly be made out agreeable unto the description of Virgil in his Poem of that name,
Inde alias volucres mimóque infecta rubenti