Page - 1196 - in The Complete Aristotle

known where such birds were twenty-five years old, thirty years old, and in some cases forty. As they grow old their claws increase in size, and pigeon- fanciers cut the claws; as far as one can see, the birds suffer no other perceptible disfigurement by their increase in age. Turtle-doves and pigeons that are blinded by fanciers for use as decoys, live for eight years. Partridges live for about fifteen years. Ring-doves and turtle-doves always build their nests in the same place year after year. The male, as a general rule, is more long-lived than the female; but in the case of pigeons some assert that the male dies before the female, taking their inference from the statements of persons who keep decoy-birds in captivity. Some declare that the male sparrow lives only a year, pointing to the fact that early in spring the male sparrow has no black beard, but has one later on, as though the blackbearded birds of the last year had all died out; they also say that the females are the longer lived, on the grounds that they are caught in amongst the young birds and that their age is rendered manifest by the hardness about their beaks. Turtle-doves in summer live in cold places, (and in warm places during the winter); chaffinches affect warm habitations in summer and cold ones in winter. < div id=“section188” class=“section” title=“8”> 8 Birds of a heavy build, such as quails, partridges, and the like, build no nests; indeed, where they are incapable of flight, it would be of no use if they could do so. After scraping a hole on a level piece of ground-and it is only in such a place that they lay their eggs-they cover it over with thorns and sticks for security against hawks and eagles, and there lay their eggs and hatch them; after the hatching is over, they at once lead the young out from the nest, as they are not able to fly afield for food for them. Quails and partridges, like barn-door hens, when they go to rest, gather their brood under their wings. Not to be discovered, as might be the case if they stayed long in one spot, they do not hatch the eggs where they laid them. When a man comes by chance upon a young brood, and tries to catch them, the hen-bird rolls in front of the hunter, pretending to be lame: the man every moment thinks he is on the point of catching her, and so she draws him on and on, until every one of her brood has had time to escape; hereupon she returns to the nest and calls the young back. The partridge lays not less than ten eggs, and often lays as many as sixteen. As has been observed, the bird has mischievous and deceitful habits. In the spring-time, a noisy scrimmage takes place, out of which the male-birds emerge each with a hen. Owing to the lecherous nature 1196