With such baits as a quail, a flamingo, a goose, or a cock's comb staring
and splendid.

All best good things that befall men come from us birds, as is plain to
all reason:
For first we proclaim and make known to them spring, and the winter and
autumn in season;
Bid sow, when the crane starts clanging for Afric, in shrill-voiced
emigrant number,
And calls to the pilot to hang up his rudder again for the season, and
slumber;
And then weave a cloak for Orestes the thief, lest he strip men of theirs
if it freezes.
And again thereafter the kite reappearing announces a change in the
breezes,
And that here is the season for shearing your sheep of their spring wool.
Then does the swallow
Give you notice to sell your greatcoat, and provide something light for
the heat that's to follow.
Thus are we as Ammon or Delphi unto you, Dodona, nay, Phoebus Apollo.
For, as first ye come all to get auguries of birds, even such is in all
things your carriage,
Be the matter a matter of trade, or of earning your bread, or of any
one's marriage.
And all things ye lay to the charge of a bird that belong to discerning
prediction:
Winged fame is a bird, as you reckon: you sneeze, and the sign's as a
bird for conviction:
All tokens are 'birds' with you--sounds too, and lackeys, and donkeys.
Then must it not follow