With such baits as a quail, a flamingo, a goose, or a cock's comb staring and splendid.
All best good things that befall men come from us birds, as is plain to all reason:
For first we proclaim and make known to them spring, and the winter and autumn in season;
Bid sow, when the crane starts clanging for Afric in shrill-voiced emigrant number,
And calls to the pilot to hang up his rudder again for the season and slumber;
And then weave a cloak for Orestes the thief, lest he strip men of theirs if it freezes.
And again thereafter the kite reappearing announces a change in the breezes.
And that here is the season for shearing your sheep of their spring wool. Then does the swallow
Give you notice to sell your great-coat, and provide something light for the heat that's to follow.
Thus are we as Ammon or Delphi unto you. Dodona, nay, Phoebus Apollo.