dust mixed with water, and after meals they should be made to drink
copiously. Kept on this diet they will be fat in about two months.[189]
After every meal the feeding place must be cleaned, for, while geese
like a clean place, they never leave any place clean in which they
have been."

_Of ducks_

XI. "Whoever wishes to keep a flock of ducks and to establish a [Greek:
naessotropheion], should choose for it, above all others if it is
possible, a swampy location because that is most agreeable to the
ducks, but, if not, then a situation sloping to a natural lake or
pool, or to an artificial pond, with steps leading down to it,
practicable for the ducks. The enclosure where they are kept should
have a wall fifteen feet high, such as you saw at Seius' villa, with
only one door opening into it. All around the wall on the inside
should run a broad platform on which are built against the wall the
duck houses, fronting on a level concrete vestibule in which is
constructed a permanent channel in which their food can be placed in
water, for ducks are fed in that way. The entire wall should be given
a smooth coating of stucco to keep out polecats[190] and other animals
of prey, and the enclosure should be covered with a net of large mesh
to prevent eagles from pouncing in and the ducks themselves from
flying out.[191]

"For food they are given wheat, barley, grape marc, and some times even
lobsters and other such aquatic animals. The pond in the enclosure
should be fed with a large head of water so that it may be kept always
fresh.

"There are other kinds of similar birds, like teals and coots which may
be fed in the same way.

"Some even keep partridges, which, as Archelaus writes, conceive
when they hear the voice of the male bird. By reason of the natural
abundance and the delicacy of their flesh, these last are not crammed
like those domestic fowls I have described, but they are fattened by
feeding in the ordinary way.

"And now, as I think that I have completed the first act of the drama
of the barn yard, I am done."

_Of rabbits_

XII. At this point Appius returned and, after an exchange of questions
and answers as to what had been said and done during his absence, he
said: "Here beginneth the second act of those industries which are
wont to be practised at a villa, namely of those enclosures which are
still known as _leporaria_ from their ancient special designation.
Today a warren no longer means an acre