Nature of Birds and Insects

It does not cease feeding them, and is always attending them. The raven is a companion of both night and day. day. Day. The owl is a lover of affection; for having aged the parents, first fans them with its wings, then with its tongue it cools their eyes, and then, by warming them, it renews them. The swallow produces the nest once in the season; and being soaked, it brings the reeds, carrying the bits to its mouth and the mud to its wing; for having wetted its tip with water, it is bound by fine dust, and thus it conceives the need for mud; and little by little, joining the bits like a certain glue to the mud, it establishes the nest and nourishes the young ones. The trygon is a single-sexed creature; for whether the male dies or the female, it does not mate with another.

The resident birds have a communal nature at all times. The philudra, like islands, and swans, and those like them, do not have split feet, but broad, membranous ones for swimming easily in the waters, as if using paddles on their feet.lling the fish up from the depths. Many of the birds change their voice and their color during the year. For the kottyphos becomes yellow from black, and from singing becomes harsh. The nightingale changes its color and its voice by its turns; and it is sleepless, devoting itself to melody.

Some of the birds do not hunger in the winter, being fed by the air alone and by the moisture that exists through herbivoryabdominal pleasures. Some indeed in spring, and in late spring according to the equinoxes, and some once in the year, come upon them. The female birds have an abdomen until conception, and immediately they reject the males. The canthari, if they are anointed with rose oil, immediately die. The bees and wasps, having been drenched in oil, perish, their resources being blocked. Thus, they will revive when being moistened; but they feed on the air and do not have breath. The bees have a king, and they make their flight common, and their dwelling common; and no one will have it readily until the king of the flight has begun.

These things possess an unmade principle by nature, differing from others in magnitude, in form, and in the gentleness of their character; for they have a center, yet they do not need this for defense. The bees gather wax from the flowers, and, having grasped the dew-like moisture with their mouths from the blossoms, they enter into the cavities of the wax; whence it is at first moisture, but then, having fallen by time, it becomes sweet and useful to men. They also skillfully devise the storehouses of the honey; dividing the wax into thin layers, they build up dense cells, continuous with one another, just as the smallness of the tiniest things is established by their connection to one another.

As for the locusts, they camp in a single formation according to the breadth of the land. Entering, they see other fruits abounding, yet they do not touch them, but strive toward the place appointed for them, as if hurried by a divine command. And they do not touch the fruit before they are given permission. Afterward, a swarm is sent against them, and it devours them all, having a nature that is insatiable. It is said that the owl dims its vision by day and strengthens it by night. When the bats sleep, they are suspended from one another; and if by chance one is torn away by a sudden movement, the rest fall down. Only the winged have four legs and are decorated with feathers. The tetiges appear in thunderstorms, and they rest for a time, because they are hardened by the dew. They are said to beat and sing with their wings.

On the sixth day, God commanded the earth to bring forth according to kind: the four-footed, and the creeping things, and the beasts of the earth, and the cattle, and all that creeps upon the earth according to kind (Genesis 1:24-25), and they were immediately provided to be, all of which share sensation with man by nature, though they do not indeed possess an equal soul; and they move by a motion which the primordial nature of the blood provides to the spirit of the external air. There are also diverse characters in them, hinting at the Providence of God; for even these things signify this not a little. Just as the fruitfulness of the plants is wise, and the order of the stars, and the uncaused course of the sun and the moon, and the law of the sea's tides are not self-governed...