As the bold bird her helpless young attends,
From danger guards them, and from want defends;
In search of prey she wings the spacious air,
And with untasted food supplies her care,[1]—
again using [Greek: ornis] in the feminine gender. But Menander in his first edition of the Heiress, uses the word plainly in the sense in which it is used at the present day; saying—
A cock had loudly crow'd—"Will no one now,"
He cried out, "drive this poultry ([Greek: tas ornithas]) from our doors?"
And again, he writes—
She scarcely could the poultry ([Greek: tas orneis]) drive away.
But Cratinus, in his Nemesis, has used the form [Greek: ornithion], saying—
And all the other birds ([Greek: ornithia]).
And they use not only the form [Greek: ornin], but also that of [Greek: ornitha], in the masculine gender. The same Cratinus says in the same play—
A scarlet winged bird ([Greek: ornitha phoinikopteron]).
And again, he says—
You, then, must now become a large bird ([Greek: ornitha megan]).
And Sophocles, in his Antenoridæ, says—
A bird ([Greek: ornitha]), and a crier, and a servant.
And Æschylus, in his Cabiri, says—
I make you not a bird ([Greek: ornitha]) of this my journey.
And Xenophon, in the second book of his Cyropædia, says—"Going in pursuit of birds ([Greek: tous ornithas]) in the severest winter." And Menander, in his Twin Sisters, says—
I came laden with birds ([Greek: orneis]).
And immediately afterwards he has
He sends off birds ([Greek: ornithas apostellei]).
And that they often used [Greek: orneis] as the plural form we have the evidence of Menander to prove to us: and also Alcman says somewhere or other—
The damsels all with unaccomplish'd ends
Departed; just as frighten'd birds ([Greek: orneis]) who see
A hostile kite which hovers o'er their heads.
And Eupolis, in his Peoples, says—
Is it not hard that I should have such sons,
When every bird ([Greek: orneis]) has offspring like its sire?
16. But, on the other hand, the ancients sometimes also
- ↑ Hom. Iliad, ix. 323, Pope's translation.
