William Warde Fowler

“ First, as to the general conditions of voicefulness, I think it may be safely said that you will not hear the Song-Thrush in strong wind, nor snow, cold fog, or other uncomfortable wintry weather. What really spurs them to sing is still, open weather, when food is easy to get at: sunshine is not a necessity, and the temperature is of no great account until it becomes really low, and continues so for some days. For example, on March 25th, when I was writing these notes, a bitterly cold day of snowstorms, a Thrush was singing finely at 6.45 p.m., with the thermometer at 26°. ”

“ Damia is found worshipped at several places in Greece, and also at Tarentum, where there was a festival called Dameia. It is thus highly probable that on the cult of the original Roman goddess was engrafted the Greek one of Damia, perhaps after the conquest of Tarentum (272 B.C.) . It is no longer possible to distinguish clearly the Greek and Roman elements in this curious cult, though it is itself quite intelligible as that of an Earth-goddess with mysteries attached. ”

“ In the Aeneid, for example, her policy is antagonistic to the plans of Jupiter for the conquest of Latium and the future greatness of Rome; though in the fourth Eclogue, as Lucina, she appears in her proper rôle as assisting at childbirth. It was under Greek influence again that she became the wife of Jupiter, the mother of Mars; the true Roman had no such personal interest in his deities as to invent family relations for them. ”

“ Only in a few cases—namely, in those of the autumn and winter song of a few resident species—are we unable to assign to song a positive importance for the preservation of species or individual. But the caution needed in dealing with these negative instances is well shown by the example of the Crossbill. It is common to quote this bird as an example of abnormal habit in the physiological sense, since it usually pairs and sings in December and January, breeds in February, and hatches its young in March. ”

“ It is plain that in him the Italians had a very useful deity, and in all these capacities he became extremely popular, as the extraordinary number of his inscriptions shows. Unlike Mars, from whom he was probably in origin an offshoot (cf. the Mars Silvanus of Cato, De re rustica, 141; see Mars) , he never made his way into the towns, but is almost the only Roman deity who from first to last retained the same perfectly intelligible rustic character. His double nature as deity of woodland and cultivated land is seen well in the artistic representations of him ”

“ On the other hand, the Gaetulians to the south of the Atlas range, on the date-producing slopes towards the Sahara, seem to have owned a precarious subjection to the kings of Mauretania, as afterwards to the Roman government. A large part of the country is of great natural fertility, and in ancient times produced large quantities of corn, while the slopes of Atlas were clothed with forests, which, besides other kinds of timber, produced the celebrated ornamental wood called citrum (Plin. Hist. Nat. 13-96) , for tables of which the Romans gave fabulous prices. ”

“ In the Comitium was an “area Volcani,” also called “Volcanal”, and here on the 23rd of August (Volcanalia) the Flamen Volcanalis sacrificed, and the heads of Roman families threw into the fire small fish, which the Tiber fishermen sold on the spot. This flamen also sacrificed on the 1st of May to Maia, who in an old prayer formula (Gellius 13. 23) was coupled with Volcanus as Maia Volcani. It is not easy to explain these survivals of an old cult. But in historical times the association of this god with conflagrations becomes very apparent ”

“ The coarse myth told by Ovid, in which Anna plays a trick on Mars when in love with Minerva, is probably an old Italian folk-tale, poetically applied to the persons of these deities when they became partially anthropomorphized under Greek influence. ”

“ V. Häcker, of Freiburg-in-Breisgau, in which I found some useful remarks on the autumn and winter singing of birds, which seemed to point to the desirability of further close observation out of doors. I was then living close to the Park at Oxford, and was in the habit of going out daily before breakfast, as well as of crossing the Park two or three times a day on my way to and from college; and I determined to note down each day throughout the winter what birds I heard singing, and especially to record the voicefulness of the Song-Thrush. ”

“ PONTIFEX. The collegium of the Pontifices was the most important priesthood of ancient Rome, being specially charged with the administration of the jus divinum, i.e. that part of the civil law which regulated the relations of the community with the deities recognized by the state officially, together with a general superintendence of the worship of gens and family. ”

“ The Romans had no historical explanation of these curious rites, and neither the theories of their scholars nor the beliefs of the common people, who fancied that the puppets were substitutes for old men who used at one time to be sacrificed to the river, are worth serious consideration. ”

“ The Christian festival which seems to have taken the place of these ceremonies is the Rogation or Gang week of the Roman Church. The perambulation or beating of bounds is probably a survival of the same type of rite. ”

“ Of these colonies the most important, beginning from the west, were Lixus on the Atlantic, Tingis (Tangier) , Rusaddir (Melila, Melilla) , Cartenna (Tenes) , Iol or Caesarea (Cherchel) , Icosium (Algiers) , Saldae (Bougie) , Igilgili (Jijelli) and Sitifis (Setif) . ”

“ It continued in full strength till the 15th. From that day till January 3rd, in rather colder weather, varied by warm days and cold fog, I heard occasional singing only, as one ordinarily does in mid-winter; on December 20th, 25th, 28th, 31st, which were stormy days, the birds were silent, and left the field vacant for the Mistle-Thrush. Though there were plenty of Song-Thrushes still to be seen, as well as occasionally heard, I think there was a decided diminution in the numbers during the last half of the month. From January 3rd to January 21st, with the temperature varying at 9 a.m. ”

“ It is obvious that a priesthood having such functions as these, and holding office for life, must have been a great power in the state, and for the first three centuries of the republic it is probable that the pontifex maximus was in fact its most powerful member. ”

“ It may be as well to add that in the North of England the Song-Thrush does not seem to be a familiar winter singer, no doubt owing to the southward migration of this species in the autumn. I am never myself in the north during the winter, and have to rely on the evidence of others ”