Note 444 — Chapter X
Reading edition
We may also record here another Italian proverb, "To take two doves with one bean." In Italian anatomy a part of the phallos is called a bean (fava). The birds, and especially the thrushes and the doves, according to the popular belief, not only have the faculty of making other birds, but even plants fruitful. The words of Pliny, Hist. Nat. xvi. 44, have already been quoted by Prof. Kuhn: "Omnino autem satum nullo modo nascitur, nec nisi per alvum avium redditum, maxime palumbis ac turdis."