Augury
Divination from the flight and cries of birds, a state ritual in Rome and a custom in many other places.
Also: auspices, bird omens, ornithomancy
Roman augurs, public priests, observed birds within a marked sacred area and judged whether a proposed action had divine approval, so a campaign or an election could be delayed. The word auspicium, from avis, bird, and spicere, to look, gave English auspicious. Greek seers did similar work, and many peoples read birds in other ways, such as the Dayak of Borneo and communities in Africa and Europe. Cicero, who was himself an augur, doubted the practice in his book On Divination. Scholars see augury as an official way of testing consensus, giving public decisions a stamp of divine consent. Folk versions, such as a single magpie, survive as rhymes.