SPARROWS. one cock never yields to another without a battle; but Theophrastus says, that the wild cocks are still more amorous than the tame ones, he says, also, that the cocks are most inclined to pursue the hens the moment they leave their perch in the morning, but the hens prefer it as the day advances.
Sparrows, also, are very amorous birds; on which account Terpsicles says, that those who eat sparrows are rendered exceedingly prone to amorous indulgences; and perhaps it is from such an idea that Sappho represents Venus as being drawn by sparrows yoked in her chariot; for they are very amorous birds, and very prolific. The sparrow has about eight young ones at one hatching, according to the statement of Aristotle. And Alexander the Myndian says that there are two kinds of sparrows, the one a tame species, and the other a wild one; and he adds that the hen-sparrow is weaker in other respects, and also that their beaks are of a more horny colour, and that their faces are not very white, nor very black; but Aristotle says that the cock-sparrow never appears in the winter, but that the hen-sparrows remain, drawing his conclusions as to what he thinks probable from their colour; for their colour changes, as the colour of blackbirds and of coots does, who get whiter at certain seasons. But the people of Elis call sparrows [Greek: deirêtai], as Nicander the Colophonian tells us in the third book of his treatise on Different Dialects.
47. We must also speak of the quail; they are called [Greek: ortyges]. And here the rearises a general question about words ending in [Greek: yx], why the words with this termination do not all have the same letter as the characteristic of the genitive case. I allude to [Greek: ortyx] and [Greek: onyx]. For the masculine simple nouns ending in [Greek: x] when the vowel [Greek: y] precedes [Greek: x], and when the last syllable begins with any one of the immutable consonants or those which are characteristic of the first[1] conjugation of barytone verbs, make the genitive with [Greek: k]; as [Greek: kêryx kêrykos, pelyx pelykos, Eryx erykos, Bebryx, Bebrykos]; but those which have not this characteristic make the genitive with a [Greek: g], as [Greek: ortyx ortygos, kokkyx kokkygos, oryx orygos]; and there is one word with a peculiar inflexion, [Greek: onyx onychos]; and as a general rule, in the nominative case plural, they follow the genitive case singular in having the same characteristic of the
- ↑ Athenæus here does not arrange his conjugations as we do; nor is it very plain what he means by an immutable consonant.
