And these days are calm, when southerly winds prevail at the
solstice, northerly ones having been the accompaniment of the Pleiads.
The halcyon is said to take seven days for building her nest, and
the other seven for laying and hatching her eggs. In our country there
are not always halcyon days about the time of the winter solstice, but
in the Sicilian seas this season of calm is almost periodical. The
bird lays about five eggs.
9
(The aithyia, or diver, and the larus, or gull, lay their eggs
on rocks bordering on the sea, two or three at a time; but the gull
lays in the summer, and the diver at the beginning of spring, just
after the winter solstice, and it broods over its eggs as birds do
in general. And neither of these birds resorts to a hiding-place.)
The halcyon is the most rarely seen of all birds. It is seen
only about the time of the setting of the Pleiads and the winter
solstice. When ships are lying at anchor in the roads, it will hover
about a vessel and then disappear in a moment, and Stesichorus in
one of his poems alludes to this peculiarity. The nightingale also
breeds at the beginning of summer, and lays five or six eggs; from
autumn until spring it retires to a hiding-place.
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