The art of interpreting divine signs was known as augury (augurium). This form of divination was performed by the Roman augurs (augures) and magistrates. Originally augury was performed by interpreting signs from birds to determine whether a proposed action had divine approval. The customary staff of an augur was the lituus.  Read more : What is Augury ?

Dozens of methods of augury have been developed, involving everything imaginable in natural phenomena and objects—even features of the human body. Some common and unusual ones are: