Page - 1200 - in The Complete Aristotle

finds its food with ease. The catarrhactes lives near the sea; when it makes a dive, it will keep under water for as long as it would take a man to walk a furlong; it is less than the common hawk. Swans are web-footed, and live near pools and marshes; they find their food with ease, are good-tempered, are fond of their young, and live to a green old age. If the eagle attacks them they will repel the attack and get the better of their assailant, but they are never the first to attack. They are musical, and sing chiefly at the approach of death; at this time they fly out to sea, and men, when sailing past the coast of Libya, have fallen in with many of them out at sea singing in mournful strains, and have actually seen some of them dying. The cymindis is seldom seen, as it lives on mountains; it is black in colour, and about the size of the hawk called the ‘dove-killer’; it is long and slender in form. The Ionians call the bird by this name; Homer in the Iliad mentions it in the line: < div class=“quote”> Chalcis its name with those of heavenly birth, But called Cymindis by the sons of earth. The hybris, said by some to be the same as the eagle-owl, is never seen by daylight, as it is dim-sighted, but during the night it hunts like the eagle; it will fight the eagle with such desperation that the two combatants are often captured alive by shepherds; it lays two eggs, and, like others we have mentioned, it builds on rocks and in caverns. Cranes also fight so desperately among themselves as to be caught when fighting, for they will not leave off; the crane lays two eggs. < div id=“section193” class=“section” title=“13”> 13 The jay has a great variety of notes: indeed, might almost say it had a different note for every day in the year. It lays about nine eggs; builds its nest on trees, out of hair and tags of wool; when acorns are getting scarce, it lays up a store of them in hiding. It is a common story of the stork that the old birds are fed by their grateful progeny. Some tell a similar story of the bee-eater, and declare that the parents are fed by their young not only when growing old, but at an early period, as soon as the young are capable of feeding them; and the parent-birds stay 1200