Note 1126 — Chapter I · THE VILLA AND THE FARMYARD.

For the food with which they were supplied, see Geopon. xiv. 1. 5. Occasionally when the birds were permitted to fly abroad, their owners sprinkled them with unguents, or gave them cumin seed to eat, in order that they might attract and bring back with them flights of doves or wild pigeons to their cells.—Id. xiv. 3. 1. So also Palladius: Inducunt alias, si cumino pascantur assidue, vel hirci alarum balsami liquore tangantur, i. 24. Cf. Plin. x. 52.