In the one case the person who exercised it could put a stop to the proceedings of any other magistrate by his obnuntiatio: this was called _spectio et nuntiatio_ (perhaps also _spectio cum nuntiatione_), and belonged only to the highest magistrates, the consuls, dictators, interreges, and, with some modifications, to the praetors. In the other case, the person who took the auspices only exercised the _spectio_ in reference to the duties of his own office, and could not interfere with any other magistrate: this was called _spectio sine nuntiatione_, and belonged to the other magistrates, the censors, aediles, and quaestors. Now as the augurs did not possess the auspices, they consequently could not possess the spectio (_habere spectionem_); but as the augurs were constantly employed by the magistrates to take the auspices, they _exercised_ the spectio, though they did not _possess_ it in virtue of their office. When they were employed by the magistrates in taking the auspices, they possessed the right of the _nuntiatio_, and thus had the power, by the declaration of unfavourable signs (_obnuntiatio_), to put a stop to all important public transactions.--The auspices were not conferred upon the magistrates in any special manner. It was the act of their election which made them the recipients of the auspices, since the comitia, in which they were appointed to their office, were held _auspicato_, and consequently their appointment was regarded as ratified by the gods. The auspices, therefore, passed immediately into their hands upon the abdication of their predecessors in office.--The auspices belonging to the different magistrates were divided into two classes, called _auspicia maxima_ or _majora_ and _minora_. The former, which belonged originally to the kings, passed over to the consuls, censors, and praetors, and likewise to the extraordinary magistrates, the dictators, interreges, and consular tribunes. The quaestors and the curule aediles, on the contrary, had only the _auspicia minora_.--It was a common opinion in antiquity that a college of three augurs was appointed by Romulus, answering to the number of the early tribes, the Ramnes, Tities, and Lucerenses, but the accounts vary respecting their origin and number. At the passing of the Ogulnian law (B.C. 300) the augurs were four in number. This law increased the number of pontiffs to eight, by the addition of four plebeians, and that of the augurs to nine by the addition of five plebeians. The number of nine augurs lasted down to the dictatorship of Sulla, who increased them to fifteen, a multiple of the original three, probably with a reference to the early tribes. A sixteenth was added by Julius Caesar after his return from Egypt. The members of the college of augurs possessed the right of self-election (_cooptatio_) until B.C. 103, the year of the Domitian law. By this law it was enacted that vacancies in the priestly colleges should be filled up by the votes of a minority