To account for the origin of a practice so absurd, we shall merely suggest a few familiar facts, which ' might be supposed to make a strong impression on unenlightened men. The instincts of many animals, and particularly of birds, must have been remarked at a very early period. Some of them, as we have already hinted, disappear regularly at certain seasons, and, when the stated period of absence has elapsed, revisit the climate which they had forsaken ; thus marking the vicissitudes of the year with almost as great precision as the progress of time is measured by the heavenly luminaries. In conjecturing the cause of these alternate emigrations and returns, it was not unnatural to ascribe them, either to sagacity greater than human, or to the influence of superior beings, by whose wisdom the hawk might have been taught, on the approach of winter, to " stretch her wings toward the south." In addition to the facts relating to migratory birds, men could not fail to ob serve such a connection between the actions of va rious species of fowls and subsequent variations of weather, as might seem to imply a power of foresee ing the changes which are about to take place in the state of the atmosphere. But the most impressive circumstances are those which are observed with re gard to carnivorous birds, particularly their crowd ing from the most distant regions to the fields of slaughter, and the scenes where the pestilence is spreading its ravages. " From the crag of the rock the eagle seeketh her prey ; her eyes behold afar off; her young ones also suck up blood : and where the slain are, there is she." After men have been accus tomed to associate the eagle, the vulture, and the raven, with the shocking consequences of a battle, it is not wonderful that the sight of these rapacious creatures, hovering near an army, should inspire hor ror, and that the blood-thirsty perspicacity, which attracts them from afar, should be considered as an indication of prescience greater than human. When
ever the imagination is thus excited, the concurrence of the most fortuitous and unimportant circumstance will be apt to mislead the judgment ; and whenever any erroneous conclusion gains admission into the mind, it is impossible to calculate the extreme impo sitions to which it may ultimately lead. An event, favourable or unfavourable, occurring soon after any singular appearance, or after any unusual combina tion of circumstances, however frivolous, is probably noted as forming a link in the apparent chain ; and thus the must chimerical principles are gradually es. tablished ; so that what was. at first nothing more than vague conjectyre, comes, in the course of time, to be considered as an indisputable truth. Of these prepossessions it is not wonderful that designing men should have taken advantage, so as to convert the superstitious tendencies of the untutored mind into engines of despotic ride, and auxiliaries of passive ,obedience. Such also is the force of prejudice, that a delusion, once introduced, (no matter how slight its foundations,) often maintains its ground after its absurdities are exposed, and its futility demonstrated. —The augury of Romulus owed its origin to credu lity ; but, under his successors, it grew into a deli berate scheme of imposture, which was not effectual ly overturned till the light of Christianity had dis pelled the gross darkness of heathenism. See Aus PICES and DIVINATION. See also Cie. De Div.; Dionys. Hal.; Grid. Fast. ; Adam's Roman Anti quities; De la Chausse De Pont. Max. Augur. ti•c. August. Niphi De Augur.; Bulengerus De Augur.. et Ausp., spud Gtaevii Thesaur. tom. v. (A).
AUGUST, the name of the eighth month of the August, the name of the eighth month of the year. It was the sextilis of the Roman calendar ; but, in consequence of several victories gained by Augustus during that month, he gave it his own name. (in)