Chapter LV, Section 1b

For, according to the doctrine of the Platonists, there is a certain power put into inferior things by which, for the most part, they agree with the superiors; whence also the tacit consents of animals seem to agree with divine bodies, and their bodies and affections to be affected with their powers, by the name of which they are ascribed to the deities. We must consider, therefore, what animals are Saturnine, what are Jovial and what Marital, and so of the rest; and, according to their properties, to draw forth their presages; so those birds which resemble Saturn and Mars, are all of them called terrible and deadly, as the screech owl, the hawlet, and others which we have mentioned before; also the horn owl, because she is a Saturnine, solitary bird, also nightly, and is reputed to be most unfortunately ominous, of which the poet saith: The ugly Owl, which no bird well resents, Foretells misfortunes and most sad events. But the swan is a delicious bird, under Venus, and dedicated to Phœbus, and is said to be most happy in her presages, especially in the auspices of mariners, for she is never drowned in water, whence Ovid Sings: Most happy is the cheerful, singing Swan In her presages—— There are also some birds that presage with their mouth and singing, as the crow, pie, and daw, whence Virgil: —This did foreshow Oft from the hollow holm that ominous Crow. Now, the birds that portend future things by their flying are, viz., buzzards, the bone-breakers, vultures, eagles, cranes, swans, and the like, for they are to be considered in their flying, whether they fly slowly or swiftly; whether to the right hand or to the left; how many fly together. Upon this account, if cranes fly apace, they signify a tempest; and, when slowly, fair weather. When two eagles fly together, they are said to portend evil, because two is a number of confusion. In like manner thou shalt enquire into the reason of the rest, as this is shown by number. Moreover, it belongs to an artist to observe a similitude in these conjectures, as in Virgil, Venus, dissembling, teacheth her son, Æneas, in these verses: —All this is not for naught, Else me in vain my parents Augury taught; Lo! twice six Swans in a glad company Jove's bird pursued through the etherial Sky In Heaven's broad tracks; now earth in a long train They seem to take, or taken, to disdain; As they return with sounding wings they sport, And Heaven surrounding in a long consort. Just so, I say, thy friends and fleet have gained The port, or with full sails the Bay obtained. Most wonderful is that kind of auguring of theirs, who hear and understand the speeches of animals, in which, as amongst the ancients, Melampus, Tiresias , Thales, and Apollonius, the Tyanean, who, as we read, excelled, and whom, they report, had excellent skill in the language of birds; of whom Philostratus and Porphyrius speak, saying, that of old, when Apollonius sat in company amongst his friends, seeing sparrows sitting upon a tree, and one sparrow coming from elsewhere unto him, making a great chattering and noise, and then flying away, all the rest following him, he said to his companions that that sparrow told the rest that an ass, being burdened with wheat, fell down in a hole near the city and that the wheat was scattered upon the ground.