“Next to the aviary should be contrived a smaller structure, called the seclusorium, in which the keeper may array the birds found dead, to render an account of them to his master, and where he may drive the birds which are ready for market from the larger aviary:  and to this end this smaller room is connected with the main cage by a large door and has more light:  and there, when he has collected the number he wishes to market, the keeper kills them, which is done secretly, lest the others might despond at the sight and themselves die before they are ready for market.

“Thrushes are not like other birds of passage which lay their eggs in particular places, as the swan does in the fields and the swallows under the roof, but they lay anywhere:  for, despite their masculine name (turdus) there are female thrushes, just as there are male blackbirds, although they have a purely feminine name (merula).

“All birds are divided as between those which are of passage, like swallows and cranes, and those which are domestic, like chickens and pigeons:  thrushes are birds of passage and every year fly from across the sea into Italy about the time of the autumn equinox, returning about the spring equinox.  At another season doves and quail do the same in immense numbers, as may be seen in the neighbouring islands of Pontia, Palmaria and Pandataria, for there they are wont to rest a few days on their arrival and again before they set out across the sea from Italy.”

b.  For pleasure

“So,” said Appius to Axius, “if you enclose five thousand thrushes in such an aviary as Merula has described and there happens to be a banquet or a triumph, you will gain forthwith that sixty thousand sesterces which you so keenly covet and be able to lend the money out at good interest.”  And then, turning to me, he added, “Do you tell us of that other kind of ornithon, namely:  for pleasure merely, for it is said that you have constructed one near Casinum which surpasses not only the original built by the inventor of such flying cages, our friend M. Laenius Strabo of Brundisium (who was the first to keep birds confined in the chamber of a peristyle and to feed them through the net), but also the vast structures of Lucullus at Tusculum.”

“You know,” I said, “that there flows through my estate near Casinum[169] a stream which is both deep and clear and fifty-seven feet wide between the masonry embankments, so that it is necessary to use bridges to get from one part of the property to the other.  On the upper reach of this stream is situated my Museum[170] and at a distance of 950 feet below is an island formed by the confluence of another stream.  Along the bank for this distance is an uncovered walk ten feet broad and between this walk and the field is the location of my aviary enclosed on both sides, right and left, with high masonry walls.  The ornithon itself is built in the shape of