[2941] A.U.C. 647.
[2942] “Spinturnix” and “clivia” were names given by the augurs probably to some kinds of birds.
[2943] Cuvier ridicules the excessive ignorance of the augurs. It is with the beak that the young bird breaks the shell.
[2944] See B. xxv. c. 5.
[2945] Picus, the son of Saturn, king of Latium. He was skilled in augury, and was said to have been changed into a woodpecker. See Ovid, Met. B. xiv. l. 314.; Virgil, Æn. B. vii. c. 187. See also Ovid, Fasti, B. iii. l. 37.
[2946] Valerius Maximus, B. v. c. 6, says, that seventeen members of this family fell at the battle of Cannæ.
[2947] “Oscines” and “alites.” This was a distinction made by the augurs, but otherwise of little utility, as all the birds with a note fly as well.
[2948] See the story of the eyes of Argus transferred to the peacock’s tail. Ovid, Met. B. i. l. 616.
[2949] It would be curious to know how the goose manifests its modesty, or “verecundia.” We are equally at a loss with Pliny to discover it.
[2950] Tribune of the people, B.C. 61. He was maternal grandfather of the Empress Livia. “Lurco” means a “glutton.”