Birds in the Ancient World from a to Z
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BIRDS IN THE ANCIENT WORLD FROM A TO Z Why did Aristotle claim that male Herons’ eyes bleed during mating? Do Cranes winter near the source of the Nile? Was Lesbia’s pet really a House Sparrow? Ornithology was born in ancient Greece, when Aristotle and other writers studied and sought to identify birds. Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z gathers together the information available from classical sources, listing all the names that ancient Greeks gave their birds and all their descriptions and analyses. Arnott identifies (where achievable) as many of them as possible in the light of modern ornithological studies. The ancient Greek bird names are transliterated into English script, and all that the classical writers said about birds is presented in English. This book is accordingly the first complete discussion of classical bird names that will be accessible to readers without ancient Greek. The only previous study in English on the same scale was published over seventy years ago and required a knowledge of Greek and Latin. Since then there has been an enormous expansion in ornithological studies which has vastly increased our knowledge of birds, enabling us to evaluate (and explain) ancient Greek writings about birds with more confidence. With an exhaustive bibliography (partly classical scholarship and partly ornithological) added to encourage further study Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z is the definitive study of birds in the Greek and Roman world. W.Geoffrey Arnott is former Professor of Greek at the University of Leeds and Fellow of the British Academy. His publications include Alexis: The Fragments (1996) and an edition of Menander in three volumes (1979, 1996 and 2000). He was also a former president of the Leeds Birdwatchers’ Club. THE ANCIENT WORLD FROM A TO Z What were the ancient fashions in men’s shoes? How did you cook a tunny or spice a dormouse? What did the Romans use for contraception? This Routledge series provides answers to these questions and many more like them which are often overlooked by standard reference works. Volumes cover key topics in ancient culture and society, from food, sex and sport to money, dress and domestic life. Each author is an acknowledged expert in their field, offering readers vivid, immediate and academically sound insights into the fascinating details of daily life in antiquity. The main focus will be on Greece and Rome, though some volumes also encompass Egypt and the Near East. The series will be suitable both as background for those studying classical subjects and as enjoyable reading for anyone with an interest in the ancient world. Available titles Food in the Ancient World from A to Z Andrew Dalby Sex in the Ancient World from A to Z John Younger Sport in the Ancient World from A to Z Mark Golden Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z Geoffrey Arnott Forthcoming titles Greek and Roman dress from A to Z Liza Cleland, Glenys Davis and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones Animals in the Ancient World from A to Z Kenneth Kitchell BIRDS IN THE ANCIENT WORLD FROM A TO Z W.Geoffrey Arnott LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2007 W.Geoffrey Arnott All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-94662-6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 10:0-415-23851-X (hbk) ISBN 10:0-203-94662-6 (ebk) ISBN 13:978-0-415-23851-9 (hbk) ISBN 13:978-0-203-94662-6 (ebk) To the members of the Leeds Birdwatchers Club and the local group of the RSPB Contents List of figures viii Preface ix Acknowledgements x Symbols and abbreviations xi 1 ANCIENT GREEK BIRDS A—Z Bibliography 373 Index of English bird names 398 List of figures 1 Owl, Scops 3 2 Jungle Fowl 18 3 Black Francolin 33 4 Partridge, Chukar 121 5 Crow, Hooded 171 6 Crested Lark 173 7 Hoopoe 176 8 Thrush, Blue Rock 192 9 Lammergeier 197 10 Bee-eater 211 11 Starling, Rose-coloured 311 12 Plover, Spur-winged 362 Preface D’Arcy Thompson’s A Glossary of Greek Birds (1st edition 1895, Oxford; 2nd edition 1936, Oxford, reprinted 1966: Hildesheim) has been from its first appearance the accepted guide in the English-speaking world to ancient Greek bird names, and deservedly so, because it combines expertise in the Greek sources from Homer down to fourteenth-century Byzantium with a knowledge of and interest in ornithology. Since 1936, however, there has been an enormous expansion in our knowledge of the birds of Greece and the Mediterranean, published in countless books and papers. Here the nine volumes of The Handbook of the Birds of Europe the Middle East and North Africa (edited mainly by Stanley Cramp, K.E.L.Simmons and C.M.Perrins, 1977–94) are magisterial. In 1997, George Handrinos and Triantaphyllos Akriotis published The Birds of Greece, correctly identifying it as the first major guide to that country’s avifauna since 1902, and in 1998, Richard Brooks produced his Birding on the Greek Island of Lesvos, thus detailing the modern evidence about the birds that can be found today on the island where at least some of the evidence that Aristotle incorporated in his History of Animals appears to have been obtained. Books on Latin bird names have been compiled by Jacques André (Les noms d’oiseaux en latin, 1967) and more exhaustively by Filippo Capponi (Ornithologia Latina, 1979), while John Pollard has published a more discursive study of ancient Greek birds (Birds in Greek Life and Myth, 1977). Statements that D’Arcy Thompson was able to make confidently in 1936 have now in a good many cases been outdated. English bird names have now been standardised, and several Latin binomials have been changed in the past seventy years. Thus, in 1936, the Carrion Crow and Hooded Crow were still identified as two subspecies of the Corvus corone, but recently they were reclassified as separate species with only the Carrion Crow retaining that binomial and the Hooded Crow becoming Corvus cornix. Thus I have attempted to produce an updated version of D’Arcy Thompson’s material, adding necessary new information from both ancient Greek and modern ornithological sources, correcting errors and suggesting some new identifications. Note on the text All abbreviations to classical references have been taken from Hornblower and Spawforth (eds) (1996) The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Acknowledgements My own interest in birds goes back fifty years or more, and although I make no claim to be an ornithologist, I have frequently watched birds in Europe, Asia and Africa alongside experts with better eyes and superior knowledge. In compiling this survey I gladly acknowledge my debts to many institutions and helpers who have responded to my questions and requests: Dr and Mrs Roger Brock, Professor J.K.Davies, Professor P.E.Easterling, Dr P.A.Hansen, David Harvey, Professor Malcolm Heath, Rob Hume (RSPB), Dr Stanley Ireland, Professor Rudolf Kassel, Professor Robert Maltby, Professor D.Mattingly, Jemima Parry-Jones (The National Birds of Prey Centre, Newent, Gloucestershire), Professor Peter Parsons, John Pollard, Dr Lionel Scott, Professor Paul Schubert, Dr Antero Tammisto, Professor David Thomas, R.S.O.Tomlin, Professor Fred Williams, Nigel Wilson; the British Library in London and Boston Spa, the Brotherton and Edward Boyle Libraries of the University of Leeds, Cornell University Library, in Geneva the University and Natural History Libraries, in London the Libraries of the Institute of Classical Studies, Imperial College, University College and the Warburg Institute, Leeds City Library, Manchester University Library, the Natural History Museum Libraries in London and Tring, Nijmegen University Library; but above all to one group and two individuals: the ladies running the Inter-Library-Loan service at the University of Leeds, Professor Jean-Marie Jacques who sent me information and rare material from Bordeaux, and Dr Walter Stockert who provided me with otherwise inaccessible material from Vienna. Symbols and Abbreviations (1) In ancient Greek bird names, e and o are used to represent a short vowel (epsilon and omicron in Greek), and ē and ō a long vowel (eta and omega in Greek). Otherwise all transliterations of Greek letters follow the rules set out in the American Library Association and Library of Congress Romanisation tables. (2) [Common] Nightingale, etc. When part of a bird name is placed between square brackets, this indicates that although in everyday usage the bracketed part is not used, it is added in ornithological literature in order to distinguish the bird from other species that share the unbracketed name. (3) An asterisk placed before an entry signifies that the creature concerned flies but is not a bird, and a question mark similarly placed signifies that the spelling of the entry or its identification as a bird is uncertain or wrong.