The Bird Cataractes

J.J. Hall

doi:10.2307/630645

The Bird Cataractes

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013

J.J. Hall

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University Library, Cambridge

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Mr J. K. Anderson, in his recent note ‘Stymphalian and other birds’ refers to a modern account of Pelicans in Florida being injured by diving upon fish fastened to boards floating just below the surface of the water, and compares it with the statement of Dionysius lxeuticon iii 22) that the ancients took the bird named Cataractes by means of fish painted upon floating planks, upon which the birds dived. He then quotes with approval a suggestion by the referee of JHS that only birds which dive from the air, like Terns and Pelicans, could be caught in this way; that Terns would be too small to be worth catching; and that Cataractes in Dionysius' statement must therefore be a Pelican.

Type: Notes
Information: The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 99 , November 1979 , pp. 163 - 164

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/630645 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1979

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References

¹ JHS xcvi (1976) 146.

² A New Dictionary of Birds, ed. by Sir A. Landsborough Thomson (London 1964) 607.

³ For similar accounts see, for instance, Alexander, W. B., Birds of the Ocean (revised edn, London 1955) 172, 177Google Scholar; Bauer, K. M. and Glutz von Blotzheim, U. N., Handbuch der Vögel Mitteleuropas i (Frankfurt am Main 1966) 279Google Scholar. With my quotation compare Dionysius' statement (op. cit. ii 7) that Pelicans (τελεκīνοι), when feeding, ‘do not dive completely under water, but dip their necks’ (Pollard, J.'s translation. Birds in Greek Life [London 1977] 75)Google Scholar: he clearly does not believe that they dive from a height.

⁴ See the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds magazine Birds iv (1972/3) 290; v 1 (1974) 8; vi 1 (1976) 35; vi 4 (1976) 34–6: on the destruction of small birds in Cyprus, France, Malta and Italy.

⁵ See SirThompson, D'A. W., A Glossary of Creek Birds (London 1936) 149Google Scholar (s.v. κίχλη): Toynbee, J. M. C., Animals in Roman Life and Art (London 1973) 277 fGoogle Scholar. and nn. A wall-painting of food from Herculaneum includes Thrushes: sec Pompeii A.D. 79 (catalogue of exhibition at the Royal Academy, London 1976–7) item 255.

⁶ Toynbee op. cit. 276 f. and nn.

⁷ Ix. iii 13. For further references, from other authors, see D'A. Thompson op. cit. s.v. άηδών, κόσσυφος. A mosaic from Piazza Armerina shows two men trying to catch Thrushes (reproduced by Lindner, K., Beiträge zu Vogelfang und Falknerei im Altertum [Berlin 1973] 31)CrossRef Google Scholar.

⁸ Sec, for instance, Ix. iii 2–5, on the capture of Larks Sparrows and other, presumably similar, birds. (On the identification of these birds see D'A. Thompson, op. cit., and A. Garzya's notes in his 1963 Teubner edition of Dionysius. The small size of is confirmed by Ix. ii 16 ) Further references to the killing and eating of small birds are cited by Pollard op. cit. 104–7 (he regards Cataractes in Ix. iii 22 as a Tern: op. cit. 106).