CHAPTER XI.
OF PROGNOSTICATIONS For what concerns oracles, it is certain that a good while before the coming of Jesus Christ they had begun to lose their credit; for we see that Cicero troubled to find out the cause of their decay, and he has these words: "Cur isto modo jam oracula Delphis non eduntur, non modo nostro aetate, sed jam diu; ut nihil possit esse contemptius ?" ["What is the reason that the oracles at Delphi are no longer uttered: not merely in this age of ours, but for a long time past, insomuch that nothing is more in contempt ?" -- Cicero, De Divin., ii.

57.] But as to the other prognostics, calculated from the anatomy of beasts at sacrifices (to which purpose Plato does, in part, attribute the natural constitution of the intestines of the beasts themselves), the scraping of poultry, the flight of birds-- "Aves quasdam.

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rerum augurandarum causa natas esse putamus." ["We think some sorts of birds are purposely created to serve the purposes of augury."-- Cicero, De Natura Deor., ii.