all the animals in pliny the elder’s natural history that have a nest (nidus):
- swallow (hirundo) 1
- phoenix (phoenix) 2
- haliaetus, perh. an osprey or sea eagle?
- eagle (aquila, perh. incl. haliaetus)
- vulture (vultur)
- cuckoo (coccyx, but not that one)
- woodpecker (pica)
- stork (ciconia)
- kingfisher (alcyon, thought in antiquity to build nests on the open sea) 3
- another hirundo, but specifically the house-martin
- titmouse (vitiparra) 4
- galgulus, perh. Eurasian golden oriole (Oriolus oriolus)?
- partridge (perdix)
- phycis, a fish and perh. the lamprey? 5
- pigeon (columba)
- woodpigeon (palumbes)
- apus, similar to the hirundo, likely a black martin or swift 6
- aegithus, perh. Eurasian blue tit or linnet?7
- wasp (vespa)
- hornet (crabro)
- silk-moth (bombyx)
- ichneumon, perh. ichneumon wasp? 8
- milvus, likely the red kite (Milvus milvus)
- melancoryphes, perh. a snipe? 9
- Not to be confused with hirudo, the leech. ↩
- Pliny, unlike Herodotus, doubts the phoenix builds its nest with cinnamon. ↩
- However. ↩
- ibid., usage note: “The plural of titmouse is a subject of much discussion among ornithologists. Most use titmice, but some insist on titmouses.” ↩
- Also attested in Halieutica, a fragmentary work by Ovid (?) on fish and fishing. ↩
- On the modern Linnean family Apodidae, per Wikipedia: “They are superficially similar to swallows, but are not closely related to any of the passerine species. Swifts are placed in the order Apodiformes, which they share with hummingbirds.” ↩
- Unrelated to Aegisthus. ↩
- But certainly parasitoidal, cf. emerald cockroach wasp. ↩
- Not to be confused with Melanocorypha, a genus of larks. ↩