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LIBER X · CAPUT 16

BIRDS WHICH ARE BORN WITH THE TAIL FIRST

BIRDS WHICH ARE BORN WITH THE TAIL FIRST. Complete modern editorial illustration created specifically for this chapter.
BIRDS WHICH ARE BORN WITH THE TAIL FIRST · EDITORIAL PLATE X.16 · modern editorial plate
BIRDS WHICH ARE BORN WITH THE TAIL FIRST. Complete modern editorial illustration created specifically for this chapter.

Latine · Mayhoff 1906

Externorum de auguriis peritissime scripsisse Hylas nomine putatur. is tradit noctuam, bubonem, picum arbores cavantem, trygonem, cornicem a cauda de ovo exire, quoniam pondere capitum perversa ova posteriorem partem corporum fovendam matri adplicent.

English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57

Among foreigners, a person called Hylas is thought to have written the best treatise on the subject of augury. He informs us that the owlet, the horned owl, the woodpecker, which makes holes in trees, the trygon, and the crow, are produced from the egg with the tail first; for the egg, being turned upside down through the weight of the head of the chick, presents the wrong end to be warmed by the mother as she sits upon it.