Book 7
6
Furthermore, why does he not find fault also with Quintus Ennius, who in his Annals uses praepes, not of the wings of Daedalus, but of something very different, in the line: 488, Vahlen2. Cf. Gell. ix. 4. 1. Brundisium girt with fair, propitious (praepete) port? But if Hyginus had regarded the force and origin of the word rather than merely noting the meaning given to it by the augurs, he would certainly pardon the poets for using words in a figurative and metaphorical sense rather than literally. For since not only the birds themselves which fly auspiciously, but also the places which they take, since these are suitable and propitious, are called praepetes, therefore Virgil called the wings of Daedalus praepetes, since he had come from places in which he feared danger into safer regions. Furthermore, the augurs call places praepetes, and Ennius in the first book of his Annals said: 94, Vahlen2.
6
But birds that are the opposite of praepetes are called inferae, or low, That is, low-flying, as opposed to swift-, or high-, flying. according to Nigidius Figulus, who says in the first book of his Private Augury: Fr. 80, Swoboda. The right is opposed to the left, praepes to infera. From this we may infer that birds were called praepetes which have a higher and loftier flight, since Nigidius said that the praepetes were contrasted with the inferae.
