The
catarrhactes lives near the sea; when it makes a dive, it will keep
under water for as long as it would take a man to walk a furlong; it
is less than the common hawk. Swans are web-footed, and live near
pools and marshes; they find their food with ease, are
good-tempered, are fond of their young, and live to a green old age.
If the eagle attacks them they will repel the attack and get the
better of their assailant, but they are never the first to attack.
They are musical, and sing chiefly at the approach of death; at this
time they fly out to sea, and men, when sailing past the coast of
Libya, have fallen in with many of them out at sea singing in mournful
strains, and have actually seen some of them dying.
The cymindis is seldom seen, as it lives on mountains; it is
black in colour, and about the size of the hawk called the
'dove-killer'; it is long and slender in form. The Ionians call the
bird by this name; Homer in the Iliad mentions it in the line:
Chalcis its name with those of heavenly birth,
But called Cymindis by the sons of earth.
The hybris, said by some to be the same as the eagle-owl, is
never seen by daylight, as it is dim-sighted, but during the night
it hunts like the eagle; it will fight the eagle with such desperation
that the two combatants are often captured alive by shepherds; it lays
two eggs, and, like others we have mentioned, it builds on rocks and
in caverns.
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