ula accepted the invitation cheerfully.

_Of the Roman development of the industries of the steading_

III. "In the first place," he said, "you should know what kind of
creatures you may raise or feed in or about a villa, either for your
profit or for your pleasure. There are three divisions for this study:
poultry houses, warrens and fish ponds.

"I include under the head of poultry houses the feeding of all kinds of
fowls which are usually kept within the walls of a steading: under the
head of warrens not merely what our great grandfathers meant--places
where rabbits were usually kept--but any enclosure adjoining a villa
in which game animals are enclosed to be fed. In like manner I include
under the head of fish ponds all those places in which fish are kept
at a villa either in fresh or salt water.

"Each of these divisions may be separated into at least two parts: thus
the first, that with respect to poultry houses, should be treated with
reference to a classification of fowls as between those which are
content on land alone, such as pea-cocks, turtle doves, thrushes; and
those which require access to water as well as land, such as geese,
widgeons and ducks. So the second division, that relating to game, has
two different classifications: one which includes the wild boar, the
roe buck and hares; the other bees, snails and dormice.

"The third, or aquatic division, likewise has two classifications, one
including fresh water fish, the other salt water fish.

"In order to secure and maintain a supply of these six classes of stock
it is necessary to provide a force of three kinds of artificers,
namely: fowlers, hunters and fishermen, or else you may buy breeding
stock from such men, and trust to the diligence of your servants to
rear and fatten their offspring until they are ready for market.
Certain of them, such as dormice, snails and chickens, may, however,
be obtained without the aid of a hunter's net, and doubtless the
business of keeping them began with the stock native to every farm:
for the breeding even of chickens has not been a monopoly of the Roman
augurs, to make provision for their auspices, but has been practised
by all farmers from the beginning of time.[166] From such a start in the
kind of husbandry we are now discussing, the next step was to provide
masonry enclosures near the steading to confine game, and these served
as well for shelter for the bee-stand, for originally the bees were
wont to