The time during which birds show themselves differs very considerably. Some, like the pigeon, remain with us all the year round, some for six months, such as the swallow; and some again, for three months only, as the thrush, the turtledove, and those which take their departure the moment they have reared their young, like the witwall and the hoopoe. There are some authors who say that every year certain birds fly from Æthiopia to Ilium, and have a combat at the tomb of Memnon there; from which circumstance they have received from them the name of Memnonides, or birds of Memnon. Cremutius states it also as a fact, ascertained by himself, that they do the same every fifth year in Æthiopia, around the palace of Memnon. In a similar manner, the birds called meleagrides fight in Bœotia. They are a species of African poultry, having a hump on the back covered with a mottled plumage. These are the latest among the foreign birds that have been received at our tables, on account of their disagreeable smell. The tomb, however, of Meleager has rendered them famous. Those birds are called seleucides, which are sent by Jupiter at the prayers offered up to him by the inhabitants of Mount Casius, when the locusts are ravaging their crops of corn. Whence they come, or whither they go, has never yet been ascertained, as, in fact, they are never to be seen but when the people stand in need of their aid. The Egyptians also invoke their ibis against the incursions of serpents; and the people of Elis, their god Myiagros (the hunter of flies), when the vast multitudes of flies are bringing pestilence among them; the flies die immediately after the propitiatory sacrifice has been made to this god. Rhodes possesses no eagles. In Italy beyond the Padus, there is, near the Alps, a lake known by the name of Larius, beautifully situated amid a country covered with shrubs; and yet this lake is never visited by storks, nor are they ever known to come within eight miles of it; while in the neighboring territory of the Insubres there are immense flocks of magpies and jackdaws, the only bird that is guilty of stealing gold and silver, a very singular propensity.