ghtly stuccoed round about to keep out rats and
other such vermin.

"Around the wall of the building on the inside are fastened many
perches where the birds can sit, and another such convenience should
be contrived from poles set on the ground and leaning against the
walls and tied together with other poles fastened transversely at
regular intervals, thus giving the appearance of the rising degrees of
a theatre. Down on the ground near the drinking water you should place
the birds' food, which usually consists of little balls of a paste
made out of figs and corn meal: but for twenty days before you intend
to market your thrushes it is customary to feed them more heavily,
both by giving them more food and that chiefly of finer meal.

"In this enclosure there should also be cages with wooden floors which
may serve the birds as resting places supplementing the perches.

"Next to the aviary should be contrived a smaller structure, called the
_seclusorium_, in which the keeper may array the birds found dead, to
render an account of them to his master, and where he may drive the
birds which are ready for market from the larger aviary: and to this
end this smaller room is connected with the main cage by a large door
and has more light: and there, when he has collected the number he
wishes to market, the keeper kills them, which is done secretly, lest
the others might despond at the sight and themselves die before they
are ready for market.

"Thrushes are not like other birds of passage which lay their eggs in
particular places, as the swan does in the fields and the swallows
under the roof, but they lay anywhere: for, despite their masculine
name (_turdus_) there are female thrushes, just as there are male
blackbirds, although they have a purely feminine name (_merula_).

"All birds are divided as between those which are of passage, like
swallows and cranes, and those which are domestic, like chickens and
pigeons: thrushes are birds of passage and every year fly from across
the sea into Italy about the time of the autumn equinox, returning
about the spring equinox. At another season doves and quail do the
same in immense numbers, as may be seen in the neighbouring islands of
Pontia, Palmaria and Pandataria, for there they are wont to rest a few
days on their arrival and again before they set out across the sea
from Italy."

_b. For pleasure_

"So," said Appius to Axius, "if you enclose five thousand thrushes
in such