Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

NEMESIANUSdesign and now in freedom delighting in the joy ofpeace. Near Peltinum by the foot of the Apenninerange it builds its nest where the sun presents himselfto the outspread lands : at the neck it is verylike ashes in colour, and its spotted back is markedwith dark flecks in the fashion of a partridge. Theguardian of the Tarpeian citadel " is no larger insize, nor the bird that taught you, Palamedes, winglikeletters.* Often have I seen a slave swayingbeneath the unfair weight of a huge dish of suchdainties,^ as he carries the collation which a consulor a new praetor has furnished for the circus at afete.IIWhen the woodland everywhere is despoiled ofits green honours, make straight for the deep forest,mounted on the snow-white housing of your steed.The snipe is an easy and an agreeable prey. Youwill find it no larger in body than ^'enus' doves. Itfeeds close to the edge of embankments, by thewash of the water, hunting tiny worms, its favouritefare. But its pursuit thereof is rather with keenscentednose than with the eyes, in which its senseis rather dull, too big for the body though they be.With the point of the beak driven into the ground itdrags out the little worms which needs must follow,therewith rewarding an appetite cheap to satisfy.*^**Palamedes was said to have invented some of the Greekletters (T, 0, H, *, X) by observing the flight of cranes :cf.Martial, IX. xiii. 7, XIII. Ixxv. ; Ausonius, Idyll, xii. (Technopaegnionde Uteris mfnuisyllabis) 25; Pliny N.H. VII. 192.