a."

"For turtle doves," said Merula, "in like manner a house should be
constructed proportioned to the number you intend to feed, and this,
like the pigeon house, I have described, should have a door and
windows and fresh water and walls and a vaulted roof, but in place of
breeding nests the mutules should be extended through the walls or
poles set in them in regular order with hempen mats on them, the
lowest rank being not more than three feet from the floor, the rest at
intervals of nine inches, the top rank six inches from the vault, and
of equal breadth as the mutule stands out from the wall. On these
the doves are fed day and night. For food they are given dry wheat,
usually a half modius for every one hundred and twenty doves. Every
day the house should be cleaned out, that they may not be injured by
the accumulation of manure, and because also it has its place in the
economy of the farm. The best time for fattening doves is about the
harvest, for then the mothers are in their best condition and produce
young ones not only in the largest number but the best for cramming:
so that is the time when they are most profitable."

_Of poultry_

IX. "Tell me now, if you please, Merula," said Axius, "what I should
know of raising and fattening poultry and wood pigeons, then we can
proceed to the discussion of the remainder of our programme."

"There are three kinds of fowls usually classed as poultry," replied
Merula, "dunghill fowl, jungle fowl and guinea fowl. The dunghill fowl
are those which are constantly kept in the country at farms.

"He who wishes to establish an [Greek: ornithoboskeion] from which, by
the exercise of intelligence and care, he can take large profits, as
the people of Delos do with such great success,[180] should observe five
principal rules: 1 deg. in regard to buying, what kind and how many he
will keep: 2 deg. in regard to breeding: 3 deg. in regard to eggs, how they
are set and hatched: 4 deg. in regard to chicks, how and by whom they are
reared, and 5 deg., which is a supplement of all the foregoing, how they
are fattened.

"The females of the dunghill fowl are called hens, the breeding males
cocks, and the males which have been altered capons. Cocks are
caponized by burning the spurs[181] with a hot iron until the skin is
broken, the wound being poulticed with potters' clay.

"He who wishes to have a model [Greek: ornithoboskeion] should equip it
with all three kinds of fowls, though