The other inhabitants of the farmyard were peacocks,[1117] commonly confined in beautiful artificial islands provided with elegant sheds; pheasants[1118] from the shores of the Black Sea;[1119] guinea-fowls from Numidia,[1120] though according to other authors they were originally found in Ætolia;[1121] partridges, quails, and the attagas. Thrushes were bred in warm rooms with slight perches projecting from the walls, and laurel boughs or other evergreens fixed in the corners.[1122] Over the clean floor was strewed their food, dried figs, which had been steeped in water, and mixed with flour or barley meal, together with the berries of the myrtle; the lentiscus, the ivy, the laurel, and the olive. They were fattened with millet, panic, and pure water.[1123] Other still smaller birds were reared, and fattened in like manner. Every farmhouse had, moreover, its columbary and dove-cotes,[1124] sometimes so large as to contain five thousand birds. They usually consisted of spacious buildings,[1125] roofed over and furnished with windows closed by lattice work, made so close that neither a lizard nor a mouse could creep through them. In the floor were channels and basins of water, in which these delicate birds[1126] might wash and plume themselves, and adjoining was a chamber into which such as were required for sale, or the table, were enticed. Even jackdaws were kept about farmyards, and like common fowls had perches set up for them.[1127] ----- Footnote 1117: Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 63. Petit. Leg. Att. p. 277. Geop. xiv. 18. 1. Athen. xiv. 70. See the poetical description of this bird by Phile: De Animal. Proprietat. c. 8. p. 32, sqq. Footnote 1118: Geop. xiv. 19. Colum. viii. 12. Pallad. i. 28. Athen. ix. 37, seq. Suid. v. φασιανοὶ. t. i. p. 1083. a. b. Aristoph. Nub. 109. Footnote 1119: According to Diogenes Laertius, (i. iv. 51) both pheasants and peacocks were familiar to the Greeks in the days of Solon. Footnote 1120: Athen. xiv. 71. Ælian. De Nat. Anim. v. 27. Aristot. Hist. Anim. vi. 2. A number of these birds were kept on the Acropolis of Athens.—Suid. v. μελεαγρίδες. t. ii. p. 122. a. Footnote 1121: Within the enclosure for these birds pellitory of the wall was probably planted, as they loved to roll in and pluck it up.—Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 6. 11. Footnote 1122: Cf. Pollux. ii. 24. Footnote 1123: Geop. xiv. 24. 5, seq. Footnote 1124: The king of Tuban, in Java, had formerly his bed surrounded by cages of turtle-doves, which roosted on perches of various coloured glass.—Voyage de La Compagnie des Indes, i. 533. Footnote 1125: Varro. iii. 7. Columell. viii. 8. Pallad. i. 24. Footnote 1126: