Humi sedentes aves in agris, et Gallinas in oppidis, et pagis repente adoritur. Praeda frustratus tacite discedit, nec unquam secundum facit insultum. Hic per humum Accipitrum omnium volat maxime[1]. Quapropter habere oportet, inquit Columella[2], clausum amplum vestibulum, idque retibus munitum, ne Aquila, vel Accipiter involet: et has impensas, et curas nisi locis, quibus harum rerum vigent pretia non expedit exhibere. Si itaque tantum emolumentum non praebeat Gallinacea tua familia, ut totam cortem retibus munire propter impensas nequeas, poteris longe cum minori sumptu eiusmodi uncungues <volucres> fugare. Plinius {volucres} vite nigra (Petrus Crescentiensis[3] id de vite alba intelligit, quae passim per Italiam obvia est, nimirum caustica illa) id praestari ex aliorum tamen relatu his verbis memoriae prodidit: Vite nigra, inquiens[4], aiunt si quis villam cinxerit, fugere Accipitres, tutasque fieri villaticas alites.

The Hen Harrier - Circus cyaneus - suddenly attacks birds living on ground in fields, and hens in towns and villages. If disappointed by his prey, he dumbly goes away and never launches a second attack. This one of all the birds of prey flies mostly along the ground. Therefore Columella says one must have an ample closed hall and moreover protected by nets so that the eagle or the sparrowhawk cannot fly in: and that it is not worth going to these expenses and cares except in places where the prices of these breeding products are high. If then your chicken flock does not offer so much profit that you can, on account of the expenses, cover the entire yard with nets, you can keep off such hook-nailed birds with far less spending. Pliny handed down that this can be achieved with black bryony - Tamus communis - by these words, even if relying upon the report of others (Pier de’ Crescenzi means this apropos of the white bryony - Bryonia dioica, found everywhere throughout Italy, the former one, black bryony, is irritating indeed). He says: They say if one fenced the farm with black bryony, hawks take flight and poultry is safe.

Etsi vero eo modo rapacium avium impetus effugere possit Gallinaceum genus, ita contra difficilius a noxiis quadrupedibus sese tueri potest, propter locorum, quibus sese {abdunt} <abdit>, commoditatem. Ex his astutissimam animalium vulpeculam in primis non oderunt modo, sed adeo vero etiam pertimescunt, ut cum subdola Gallinaceos quantumcunque in alto remoto loco intuetur, vel saltem oculos lucentes tamquam faculas eis ostendit, caudaque quasi baculo quodam minatur, prae metu sese deorsum praecipitent, fugereque conantes opprimantur. Rapit autem vulpes ex eis plurimas, adeo ut una nocte quadraginta, et amplius pullos simul cum matribus partim abstulisse, partim semiesos reliquisse meo cum malo observaverim. Cum autem nusquam non domesticis hisce alitibus infestae sint vulpes, tum vero id maxime faciunt in locis montanis, non ignarae nimirum, quod ibi facilius latere queant in sylvis, difficiliusque capiantur.

But nevertheless by this method the gallinaceous genus can escape the attack of birds of prey, on the other hand he can protect himself with more difficulty from harmful quadrupeds, on account of the handiness of the places where he takes shelter. Among these quadrupeds the chickens firstly not only hate the most cunning of animals, the fox, but really they also fear her so much that when the tricky creature gazes at chickens as far as high and distant is the place where they are, or at least she shows them her eyes shining like torches and menaces them with her tail as if it were a club, because of the dread they fling themselves down and are killed trying to flee. For the fox seizes very many of them, so that as many as forty chicks along with their mothers in one night she has partly stolen, or left behind partly eaten, as I have observed at my own expense. Although there is no place where foxes are not dangerous for these domestic fowls, they do so especially in mountainous places, of course well aware that they can hide there more easily in the woods and are captured with more difficulty.

Ut itaque noxia istaec animalia fuges, Gallinariumque et cortem tuta reddas, placuit hic etiam remedia docere, quibus id praestare queas. Tradit Hector Boëtus[5], Scotos maxime monticolas tali consilio illarum belluarum pernitiem antevertere consuevisse: Vicis frequentioribus, inquit, singulae aedes singulas Vulpeculas nutriunt, easque earum carnibus contusis, coctisque animalium cibis miscere solent. Quae autem pecudes, et volucres domesticae eas degustassent, duos prope menses innoxiae securaeque pascentes oberrant, vulpibus a sui generis esca tam anxie abstinentibus: quod ita esse comprobant. Nam si quae non degustarit, pervagantibus inter Gallinas, Anates, Anseres caeterasque aves innoxiis vulpibus ea sola illis praeda est quam a genere suo abstinuisse sentiunt, ut appareat inferendis iniuriis nonnunquam iniurias propelli. Haec ille: quod secretum Plinium ignorasse minime videtur. Nam et hic alibi[6] scripsit Gallinaceos non attingi a vulpibus, qui iecur animalis eius aridum ederint, vel si pellicula ex {ea} <eo>[7] collo inducta, Galli inierint. Rutam sylvestrem etiam adversus vulpes, et alia animantia Gallinis infesta valere legimus, et multo efficaciorem fore, si vulpis fel cibo {admistum} <admixtum> adhibueris, Democritus affirmat[8]. Idem de cat<t>o scribunt Dioscorides[9], et {Afranius} <Africanus>, sed diversimode. Tradunt rutae montanae, inquit ille, succum Gallinaceis pullis inspersum feles arcere. Cat<t>us, ait hic, non invadet Gallinam, si ruta sylvestris sub eius ala appendatur.

Therefore, in order that you may drive these harmful animals away and keep your poultry pen and barnyard safe, I thought it proper to give here some advice thanks to which you can do this. Hector Boëce relates that the Scots, chiefly the mountaineers ones, are accustomed to prevent the damage coming from these beasts by the following trick: In many villages, he says, each home raises a fox cub and is accustomed to mix with the food of their animals the crushed and cooked fleshes of foxes. For the domestic animals and birds who have tasted them go grazing around almost two months unharmed and without danger, since foxes abstain so carefully from a food which belongs to their genus so that they confirm that is exactly how things stand. But if anyone has not tasted that food, it becomes the sole prey for foxes who harmless wander about among hens, ducks, geese, and remaining birds, because they find it abstained from fleshes of their genus; thus it appears that injury is warded off sometimes by inflicting injury. Thus far Boëce. Pliny seems to have been well aware of this secret. For he also has written elsewhere: They are not attacked by foxes those gallinaceous who ate the dry liver of that animal, or if the roosters will mount them – only hens, we hope! - after they put on their neck a piece of skin of that animal. I have read that wild rue is good also against foxes and other animals harmful to hens, and Bolos of Mendes affirms it would be much more effective if you will give gall of fox mixed with the food. Dioscorides and Julius Sextus Africanus – not Afranius - write the same thing about the cat, but in a different way. The former says: They tell that the juice of mountain rue sprinkled on gallinaceous chicks keeps away cats. The latter says: The cat does not attack the hen if wild rue is hung under her wing.

Cum mustelis magis, quam cum felibus insitam inimicitiam exercent, nam has non praetereuntes duntaxat horrent, sed voce etiam tantum audita, teste Aeliano[10], fere exanimantur, cum alioqui, mugitus boum, rugitusque asinorum praeclare contemnant: Ab his quoque Plinius[11] tutos Gallinaceos pullos fore prodidit, si earum cinis in offa istis exhibeantur. Salamandrae pariter nescio quid inesse necesse est, quod occulte Gallinis noceat, nam et hanc referunt in acervo tritici repertam totum id inficere, Gallinasque inde {viscentes} <vescentes> emori, cum alias noxias quasque serpentes impune saepius visae sint devorasse. At Gallinae eo die, quo ovum peperint, a serpente non laeduntur, quin et caro earum tum a serpente morsis remedio est. Item serpentes quosvis absque noxa depascuntur, cum alioqui, quod mirum videtur, ab ipsis morsae moriantur, sed magis adhuc admirandum est, quod tradit Plinius[12], nimirum superventu eorum, qui serpentium canisve {rapidi} <rabidi> dente aliquando laesi fuerint, Gallinarum incubitus, et pecorum foetus abortu vitiari. Ut ergo non mordeant Gallinas, sic provideto: Circa caveas incendito cornu, cuius {odere} <odore> non fugari tantum, verumetiam eos interimi referunt.

They show an inborn hostility more towards beech martens than cats, for they are frightened not only when they pass in front of them, but, according to Aelian, even in hearing their voice they faint, while on the other hand they disregard quite clearly the cattle mooing and the asses braying: Pliny related that gallinaceous chicks are safe also from these animals - beech martens - if ashes of beech martens are given them into a mouthful. Likewise, it is necessary that there is in the salamander something secretly harming hens, for they also say that when it is found in a heap of wheat it spoils all the heap, and that hens eating the wheat die, although in other circumstances they have often been seen to safely devour any harmful snake. But hens are not injured by a snake on that day when they laid an egg, on the contrary their flesh is then a remedy for those who have been bitten by a snake. Likewise, they eat without harm any snake while, and this seems strange, they die if bitten by them, but what Pliny records is even more amazing, that is, because of the sudden arrival of those who by chance have been wounded by tooth of snakes or a rabid dog, hens’ incubations and livestock’s foetus go bad by abortion. Therefore, take the following steps so that they don’t bite the hens: you will burn a horn around their nesting places, and they tell that not only they will be driven away by its smell, but are even killed.

Cum plantis quibusdam hae volucres antipathiam habere videntur, ac in primis cum nobilissima arbore, quae nobis eximium illud Bacchi donum subministrat, cum vite inquam, cuius florem ipsis in cibo exhibitum efficere ferunt, ut postmodum maturescentium uvarum esu abstineant. Sunt qui id, ut antea[13] etiam obiter diximus, {oenanthi} <oenanthae>[14] sylvestri ascribant, eamque cibo incoctam, et illis proiectam fastidium gignere uvas appetendi: verum Plinius id de uvae flore simpliciter protulit. Ut ut est, utriusque curiosus quispiam poterit cum parvo sumptu, at cum maximo lucro periculum facere. Nam uvarum esus, ut ostendimus<,> Gallinis admodum damnosus est. Sed forte cum omni vite antipathiam habuerint, nam idem Plinius[15], {Gallinaceis ipsis circulis e sarmentis collo additis [243] non canere} <At gallinacei ipsi circulo e ramentis addito in collum non canunt> tradit, quod si verum est, insigne sane, et occultum odium demonstrat.

These birds seem to have an antipathy toward certain plants, especially toward that most known tree which gives us that exceptional present of Bacchus, I mean the vine, and they say that its flower given them in food gets them to abstain from afterwards eating the grapes when ripening. There are those who, as before I said in passing, ascribe this effect to the wild vine, and – affirm - that throwing it to them cooked along with food it creates a dislike for the desire of grapes: to tell the truth Pliny simply reported this fact apropos of the flowers of the grape. However it is, if somebody is curious about both points of view, he can carry out a test with little expense but with great gain. For the eating of grapes, as I showed, is quite harmful to hens. Probably because they dislike any kind of vine; for Pliny himself tells that The roosters themselves won’t sing when you place on their neck a necklace done with scales of gold, which, if true, really proves a remarkable and hidden hate.