On paying heed to the good nature of birds

MANKIND should take lessons from birds: to observe the laws of hospitality with the storks; to share dangers with their friends, like the crows, ¹ and also imitate their chastity, ² for crows are completely faithful to one another. They rigorously preserve matrimonial purity and refrain from mating in public. If the partner dies, the other keeps its bereavement unstained. ² In Albertus’s opinion crows play their part in prophecies and spells. ³ In Bk XIX Pliny says that when they face water and croak loudly, as other land-birds do, and spray it over themselves, it foretells rain. ⁴ Observation has revealed that in the North, when they shower themselves with snow, just as the thrush or lark bathes itself in sand, or the cock in dust, a deep snow-fall is being forecast. ⁵ If any birds of prey are going to attack, crows give the alarm to domestic fowl by a fierce cawing and fluttering, or indeed, according to Suetonius, by their voice alone, when he states jokingly: Lately a chattering crow, perched on the Tarpeian rock, Could not say ‘All’s well,’ but only ‘So it shall be’. ⁶