. This name was given
at first to the fowls which were imported from Medea on account of
their great size and then to all of that breed, but now the name is
given indiscriminately to all large fowls by reason of their general
resemblance. After the feathers have been pulled from their tails and
wings they are crammed with balls of barley paste, with which may be
mixed darnel meal, or flax seed soaked in soft water. They are fed
twice a day but care must be taken to see that the last meal is
digested before another is put before them. After they have been fed
and their heads have been cleaned of mites, they are shut up again.
This process is kept up for twenty-five days, when they will be fat.

"Some cram them on wheat bread soaked in water, or even in wine of
good flavour and bouquet, claiming that they are thereby made fat and
tender in twenty days.[185]

"If in the process of cramming the fowls lose their appetite from too
much food, the ration should be reduced daily during the last ten days
in the same proportion as it was increased during the first ten days,
so that the ration will be the same on the twentieth as on the first
day.

"Wood pigeons are crammed and fattened in the same way."

_Of geese_

X. "Let us now pass," said Axius, "to that tribe which cannot live in
the barn yard all the time, or even on land, but requires access to
ponds. I mean those whom you philhellenes call amphibia. I understand
that you call the places in which geese are kept by the Greek name
[Greek: chaenoboskeion], and that Scipio Metellus and M. Seius have
several large flocks of geese."

"It is Seius' practice," said Merula, "to maintain his flocks of
geese[186] in accordance with the five rules I have laid down for
poultry, namely: with respect to choice of individuals, breeding,
eggs, goslings and the process of cramming.

"On the first point he requires the slave who buys his geese to select
them of good size and of white plumage, because they reproduce their
own qualities in their goslings. This is necessary for there is
another kind of geese of variegated plumage, which are called wild,
and do not flock freely with the other kind and are domesticated with
difficulty.

"The best time for breeding geese is at the end of winter and for
laying and hatching from the beginning of February or March until the
summer solstice. They breed usually in the water, diving to the bottom
of the stream or pond.[187] A goose lays only