whether they fly slowly, or swiftly, whether to the right hand, or to the left, how many fly together: upon this account if Cranes fly apace, they signifie a tempest: when slowly, fair weather. Also when two Eagles fly together, they are said to portend evill, because that is a number of confusion. In like manner thou shalt enquire into the reason of the rest, as this is shewed of number. Moreover it belongs to an artist to observe a similitude in these conjectures, as in Virgil, Venus dissembling, teacheth her son Aeneas in these verses.
---------- All this is not for naught,
Else we in vain my parents Augury taught,
Lo! twice six Swans in a glad company
Joves bird pursued through the etheriall Skie
In Heavens broad tracks: now earth in a long train
They seem to take, or taken to disdain;
As they return with sounding wings, they sport,
And Heaven surrounding in a long consort.
Just so, I say, thy friends and fleet have gain'd
The port, or with full sailes the Bay obtain'd.
Most wonderful is that kind of Auguring of theirs, who hear, & understand the speeches of Animals, in which as amongst the Ancients, Melampus, and Tiresias, and Thales, and Apollonius the Tyanean, who as we read, excelled, and whom they report had excellent skill in the language of birds: of whom Philostratus, and Porphyrius speak, saying, that of old when Apollonius sate in company amongst his friends, seeing Sparrows sitting upon a tree, and one Sparrow coming from elsewhere unto them, making a great chattering and noise, and then flying away, all the rest following him, he said to his companions, that that Sparrow told the rest that an Asse being burdened with wheat fell down in a hole neer the City, and that the wheat was scattered upon the ground: many being much moved with these words, went to see, and so it was, as Apollonius said, at which they much wondered. Also Porphyrius the Platonist in his third book of Sacrifices, saith, that there
