43. Lamprey (_muraena_) the Greeks term μύραινα, because it coils itself in circles. They say that this fish is of the female sex only, and that it conceives from the serpent. On this account it is enticed by the fishermen by hissing like a serpent, and it is taken. It is killed with difficulty by the stroke of a club but at once by that of a ferule. It is certain that it has its life in its tail, for if the head is struck it is hard to kill it, but when its tail is struck it dies at once. 53. Mussels (_musculi_) as we have said before are shell-fish, and oysters conceive from their milk, and they are called _musculi_ as if it were _masculi_. 56. Certain relate what is incredible, that ships go more slowly if they carry a tortoise’s right foot. Chapter 7. On birds. 3. Birds (_aves_) are so called because they have no definite roads (_viae_) but speed hither and thither through pathless (_avia_) ways. 9. Many names of birds were evidently made up from the sound of their cry, as _grus_, _corvus_, _cygnus_, _pavo_, _ulula_, _cuculus_, _graculus_, and so on. For the variety of their cry told men what they were to be called. 10. The eagle (_aquila_) is so called from its sharpness (_acumine_) of sight. For it is said to possess such power of vision that when it is borne over the sea with motionless wing and is not visible to human sight, even from such a lofty place it sees the fishes swim, and descending like a missile from an engine it seizes its booty and flies with it to the shore. 11. It is also said not to lower its gaze from the rays of the sun, and for this reason it lifts its young ones in its talons and exposes them to the rays of the sun, and keeps as worthy of its kind those which it sees keep a motionless gaze, and drops down as degenerate whatever ones it sees turning their gaze downward. 18. The swan (_cygnus_) is so called from singing, because it pours forth sweet song in modulated tones. And it sings sweetly for the reason that it has a long curving neck, and it must needs be that the voice, struggling out by a long and winding way, should utter various notes. 19. They say that in the Hyperborean regions when cithara players lead, many swans fly up and sing very harmoniously. 44. The crow (_cornix_), a bird full of years, has a Greek name[338] among the Latins, and augurs say it increases a man’s anxieties by the tokens it gives, that it reveals ambushes, and foretells the future. It is great wickedness to believe this, that God entrusts his counsels to crows. [338] _Cornix_ is not a Greek word, as Isidore seems to imply. Its nearest Greek equivalent is κορώνη. 66. To the hoopoe (_upupa_) the Greeks give its name because it attends to (_consideret_) human excrements and feeds on stinking filth, a most foul bird, helmeted with upstanding crests, always lingering at graves and human excrements. And whoever anoints himself with its blood, on going to sleep will see demons choking him.