Chapter VIII: Introduction (8)

Lord Byron used to mention a strange story which the commander of a packet related to him. This officer stated, that being asleep one night in his berth, he was awakened by the pressure of something heavy on his limbs; and, there being a faint light in his room, could see, as he thought distinctly, the figure of his brother, who was at that time in the same service in the East Indies, dressed in his uniform, and stretched across the bed. Concluding it to be an illusion of the senses, he shut his eyes and made an effort to sleep. But still the same pressure continued, and still, as often as he ventured to look, he saw the figure lying across in the same position. To add to his wonder, on putting forth his hand to touch the figure, he found the uniform in which it appeared to be dressed _dripping wet_. On the entrance of one of his brother officers, to whom he called out in alarm, the apparition vanished. A few months later Captain Kidd received intelligence that on that very night his brother had been drowned in the Indian seas.—_Moore's Life of Byron._

_Sir Henry Wotton's Strange Dream._

Honest Isaac Walton makes Sir Henry Wotton a dreamer in the family line; for, just before his death, he dreamed that the University treasury was robbed by townsmen and poor scholars, and that the number was five. He then wrote to his son Henry at Oxford, inquiring about it, and the letter reached him the morning after the night of the robbery. "Henry," says the account, "shows his father's letter about, which causes great wonderment, especially as the number of thieves was exactly correct."

_Supernatural Appearance at Holland House._

Aubrey tells us, in his "Miscellanies," that "the beautiful Lady Diana Rich, daughter of the Earl of Holland, as she was walking in her father's garden, at Kensington, to take the fresh air before dinner, about eleven o'clock, being then very well, met with her own apparition—habit and everything—as in a looking-glass. About a month after she died of smallpox. It is said that her sister, the Lady Elizabeth Thynne, saw the like of herself also, before she died. This account I had from a person of honor."

_Old Grimaldi's Death._

Grimaldi, the father of "Joe," the celebrated clown, had a vague yet profound dread of the 14th day of the month. At its approach he was always nervous, disquieted, anxious; directly it had passed, he was another man again, and invariably exclaimed, in his broken English, "Ah! now I am safe for anoder month." If this circumstance were unaccompanied by any singular coincidence, it would be scarcely worth mentioning; but it is remarkable that Grimaldi actually died on the 14th of March, and that he was born, christened and married on the 14th of the month.—_Dickens' Life of Grimaldi._

_Twelfth-night Omens._

In Normandy, if any of the family are absent when the cake is cut on Twelfth-night, his share is carefully put by. If he remains well, it is believed that the cake continues fresh; if ill, it begins to be moist; if he dies, the cake spoils.

_Twofold Apparition._

Mrs. Mathews relates, in the memoirs of her husband, the celebrated comedian, that he was one night in bed and unable to sleep from the excitement that continues some time after acting; when, hearing a rustling by the side of his bed, he looked out and saw his first wife, who was then dead, standing by the bedside, dressed as when alive. She smiled and bent forward, as if to take his hand; but in his alarm he threw himself out on the floor to avoid the contact, and was found by the landlord in a fit. On the same night, and at the same hour, the second Mrs. Mathews, who was far away from her husband, received a similar visit from her predecessor, whom she had known when alive. She was quite awake, and in her terror seized the bell-rope to summon assistance; the rope gave way, and she fell with it in her hand to the floor.

_Dr. Donne's Apparition._

Isaac Walton gives an account of this apparition in the life of Dr. Donne. The doctor left his wife unwell in London, and went with Sir Robert Drury to Paris. Two days after arriving there he stated to Drury that he had had a vision of his wife walking through his room, with her hair hanging over her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms. So impressed were they by the incident that they immediately sent a messenger to London to inquire regarding Mrs. Donne's health. The intelligence procured by the man was, that she had been brought to bed of a dead child at the very hour in which her husband thought he had seen her in Paris.

_Picture Omens._

Archbishop Laud, not long before the disastrous circumstance happened which hastened his tragical end, on entering his study one day, found his picture at full length on the floor, the string which held it to the wall having snapped. The sight of this struck the prelate with such a sense of the probability of his fate, that from that time he did not enjoy a moment's peace. The Duke of Buckingham was struck by an occurrence of a similar kind; he found his picture in the Council Chamber fallen out of its frame. This accident, in that age of omens, was looked upon with a considerable degree of awe.

_Felling Oaks._

In the "Magna Britannia," the author, in his "Account of the Hundred of Croydon," says: "Our historians take notice of two things in this parish which may not be convenient to us to omit, viz: A great wood called Norwood, belonging to the archbishops, wherein was anciently a tree called the Vicar's Oak, where four parishes met, as it were, in a point. It is said to have consisted wholly of oaks, and among them was one that bore a mistletoe, which some persons were so hardy as to cut for the gain of selling it to the apothecaries of London, leaving a branch of it to sprout out; but they proved unfortunate after it, for one of them fell lame and others lost an eye. At length, in the year 1678, a certain man, notwithstanding that he was warned against it, upon the account of what the others had suffered, ventured to cut the tree down, and he soon after broke his leg.

"To fell oaks has long been counted fatal, and such as believe it produce the instance of the Earl of Winchilsea, who, having felled a curious grove of oaks, soon after found his countess dead in her bed suddenly, and his eldest son, the Lord Maidstone, was killed at sea by a cannon ball."

_Lord Bacon's Dream._

When Lord Bacon, as he himself records, dreamt in Paris that he saw "his father's house in the country plastered all over with black mortar," his feelings were highly wrought upon; the emotions under which he labored were of a very apprehensive kind, and he had no doubt that the next intelligence from England would apprise him of the death of his father. The sequel proved that his apprehensions were well grounded, for his father actually died the same night in which he had his remarkable dream.

_Reckless Disregard of Omens._

P. Claudius, in the First Punic War, caused the sacred chickens, who would not leave their cage, to be pitched into the sea, saying: "If they will not eat, they must drink."

_Sailors' Whistling._

Zoraster imagined there was an evil spirit that could excite violent storms of wind. The sailors are tinctured with a superstition of the kind, which is the reason why they so seldom whistle on ship-board; when becalmed, their whistling is an invocation.

_The Hinder Well-spout Unlucky._

A curious instance of popular superstition, in defiance of plain facts to the contrary, is related in a letter written in the year 1808, published in Dr. Aikin's "Athenæum." The writer says that in the year 1801, he visited Glasgow, and, passing one of the principal streets in the neighborhood of the Iron Church, observed about thirty people, chiefly women and girls, gathered round a large public pump, waiting their turn to draw water. The pump had two spouts, behind and before; but he noticed that the hinder one was carefully plugged up, no one attempting to fill her vessel from that source, although she had to wait so long till her turn came at the other spout.

On inquiry, the visitor was informed that, though the same handle brought the same water from the same well through either and both of the spouts, yet the populace, and even some better informed people, had for a number of years conceived an idea, which had become hereditary and fixed, that the water passing through the hindermost spout would be _unlucky and poisonous_. This prejudice received from time to time a certain sanction; for in the spout, through long disuse, a kind of dusty fur collected, and this, if at any time the water was allowed to pass through, made it at first run foul—thus confirming the superstitious prejudice of the people, who told the traveler that it was certain death to drink of the water drawn from the hindermost spout. The magistrates had sought to dispel the ignorant terror of the populace, by cleaning out the well repeatedly in their presence, and explaining to them the internal mechanism of the pump, but all was in vain.

_Assuming the Form of a Bird._

That the soul quits the dead body in the form of a bird, is a wide-spread belief, and has been the subject of superstitious fancies from the earliest times. In the Egyptian hieroglyphics, a bird signifies the soul of man.

In the legend of St. Polycarp, who was burned alive, his blood extinguished the flames, and from his ashes arose a white dove which flew towards heaven. It was said that a dove was seen to issue from the funeral pyre of Joan of Arc.

In the Breton ballad of "Lord Nann and the Korrigan" there is an allusion to spirit-bearing doves—

"It was a marvel to see, men say,
The night that followed the day,
The lady in earth by her lord lay,
To see two oak-trees themselves rear
From the new-made grave into the air;

"And on their branches two doves white,
Who were there hopping gay and light;
Which sang when rose the morning ray,
And then toward heaven sped away."

A wild song, sung by the boatmen of the Mole, in Venice, declares that the spirit of Daniel Manin, the patriot, is flying about the lagoons to this day in the shape of a beautiful dove.

In the Paris _Figaro_ (October, 1872), is an account of the death of a gipsy belonging to a tribe encamped in the Rue Duhesme. Among other ceremonies, a live bird was held close to the lips of the dying girl, with the view of introducing her soul into the bird.

In certain districts of Russia bread-crumbs are placed in a piece of white linen, outside of the window, for six weeks, under the belief that the soul of the recent inmate will come, in the shape of a bird, to feed upon the crumbs. When Deacon Theodore and his three schismatic brethren were burnt in 1681, the souls of the martyrs, as the "Old Believers" affirm, appeared in the air as pigeons.

_Talismanic Stones in Birds._

Among the curiosities of ancient credulity was the belief that certain birds possessed stones of remarkable talismanic virtue. One of these was supposed to be found in the brain of the vulture, which gave health to the finder and successful results when soliciting favors. Dioscorides gives an account of the use of an eagle-stone in detecting larceny. The _Alectorius_, a stone worn by the wrestler Milo, was so called from being taken out of the gizzard of a fowl. A stone like a crystal, as large as a bean, extracted from a cock, was considered by the Romans to make the wearer invisible. _Corvia_ was the name of a stone obtained from the nest of a crow. The swallow-stone was a Norman superstition, according to which the bird knows how to find on the seashore a stone that restores sight to the blind. Longfellow, in "Evangeline," says—

"Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone which the swallow
Brings from the shore of the sea, to restore the sight of her fledglings."

_Birds Prognosticating Death._

In old times it was believed that certain birds prognosticated death. In Lloyd's "Stratagems of Jerusalem" (1602), he says: "By swallows lighting upon Pirrhus' tents, and lighting upon the mast of Mar. Antonius' ship, sayling after Cleopatra to Egypt, the soothsayers did prognosticate that Pirrhus should be slaine at Argos, in Greece, and Mar. Antonius in Egypt." He alludes to swallows following Cyrus from Persia to Scythia, from which the magi foretold his death. Ravens followed Alexander the Great in returning from India, and going to Babylon, which was a sure presage of his end.

Among the Danish peasantry the appearance of a raven in the village is considered an indication that the parish priest is to die. "There is a common feeling in Cornwall," observes Mr. Hunt, "that the croaking of a raven over the house bodes evil to some of the family." Marlowe, in his "Rich Jew of Malta," described the "sad-presaging raven"—

"That tolls
The sick man's passport in her hollow beak,
And in the shadow of the silent night
Doth shake contagion from her sable wings."

Gay, in "The Dirge," notices the presage—

"The boding raven on her cottage sat
And with hoarse croakings warn'd us of our fate."

A number of crows are said to have fluttered about Cicero's head on the very day he was murdered.

An evil prognostic attends the bittern in its flight. Bishop Hall, alluding to a superstitious man, says: "If a bittern flies over his head by night, he makes his will."

Homer has immortalized the crane as foreboding disaster—

"That when inclement winters vex the plain
With piercing frosts, or thick descending rain,
To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly,
With noise and order, through the midway sky;
To pigmy nations wounds and death they bring,
And all the war descends upon the wing."

Here is a saying that includes the magpie as a presager of death—

"One's joy, two's a greet [crying],
Three's a wedding, four's a sheet [winding sheet]."

The _burree churree_, an Indian night bird, preys upon dead bodies. The Mohammedans say that should a drop of the blood of a corpse, or any part of it, fall from this bird's beak on a human being, he will die at the end of forty days.

_The Crossbill._

There is an odd superstition connected with the crossbill, in Thuringia, which makes the wood-cutters very careful of the nests. This bird in captivity is subject to many diseases, such as weak eyes, swelled and ulcerated feet, etc., arising probably from the heat and accumulated vapors of the stove-heated rooms where they are kept. The Thuringian mountaineer believes that these wretched birds can take upon themselves any diseases to which he is subject, and always keeps some near him. He is satisfied that a bird whose upper mandible bends to the right, has the power of transferring colds and rheumatisms from man to itself; and if the mandible turns to the left, he is equally certain that the bird can render the same service to the women. The crossbill is often attacked with epilepsy, and the Thuringians drink every day the water left by the bird, as a specific against that disease.

_The Ostrich._

The ancient myth about the ostrich was that she did not hatch her eggs by setting upon them, but by the rays of light and warmth from her eyes. Southey alludes to this in "Thalaba"—

With such a look as fables say
The mother ostrich fixes on her eggs,
Till that intense affection
Kindle its light of life.

_Honoring the Lark._

In Russia, on the 9th of March, the day on which the larks are supposed to arrive, the rustics make clay images of those birds, smear them with honey, tip their heads with tinsel, and then carry them about, singing songs to spring, or to Lada, their vernal goddess.

_The Nightingale._

Milton's exquisite sonnet to the nightingale makes pointed reference to the fancy that her song portended success in love. Faber, in the "Cherwell Water Lily," gives an angelic character to the strains of the nightingale. The classical fable of the unhappy Philomela may have given origin to the conception that the nightingale sings with its breast impaled upon a thorn. The earliest notice of this myth by an English poet is, probably, that in the "Passionate Pilgrim" of Shakespeare—

"Everything doth banish moan,
Save the nightingale alone.
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
_Lean'd her breast up till a thorn_,
And there sung the dolefull'st ditty,
That to hear it was great pity."

_The Blackbird originally White._

There is a curious story of the blackbird that its original color was white, but it became black because one year three of the days were so cold that it had to take refuge in a chimney. Mr. Swainson says that "these three days (January 30th, 31st and February 1st) are called in the neighborhood of Brescia, 'I giorni della merla,' the blackbird's days."

_The Dove._

The dove amongst birds, from its gentle and loving nature in the first place, and in the second from the purity of its plumage, has been preferably selected as the image of the Holy Ghost.

According to an apocryphal gospel, the Holy Ghost, under the form of a dove, designated Joseph as the spouse of the Virgin Mary by alighting on his head; and in the same manner, says Eusebius, was Fabian indicated as the divinely-appointed Bishop of Rome. According to a singular legend, the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, was present at the Council of Nice, and _signed the creed_ that was there framed! There are many legends of a similar character.

At the consecration of Clovis the divine dove is said actually to have presided over the Christian destinies of France. Clovis and the Bishop of Rheims, St. Remi, proceeded in procession to the baptistry, where the chief of the Franks was to be consecrated king and made a Christian. When they arrived there, the priest, bearing the holy chrism, was stopped by the crowd, and could not reach the font. But a dove, whiter than snow, brought thither in her beak the "ampoule" (a phial of white glass) filled with chrism sent from heaven. St. Remi took the vessel and perfumed with chrism the baptismal water.

In a painted window at Lincoln College, Oxford, Elisha the prophet is represented with a double-headed dove seated on his shoulder. This becomes intelligent on referring to his petition to Elijah, when he entreated that "a double portion" of his spirit might rest upon him.

The dove, as a harbinger of good news, is alluded to in one of Martial's epigrams—

"A dove soft glided through the air
On Aretulla's bosom bare.
This might seem chance, did she not stay,
Nor would, permissive, wing her way.
But, if a pious sister's vows
The Master of mankind allows,
This envoy of Sardoan skies
From the returning exile flies."

_Killing a Robin._

In old times ill-luck attended the killing of a robin. If one died in the hand, it was believed that the hand would always tremble. In "Six Pastorals," by George Smith, 1770, the following occurs:—

"I found a robin's nest within our shed
And in the barn a wren has young one's bred;
I never take away their nest, nor try
To catch the old ones, lest a friend should die.
Dick took a robin's nest from the cottage side,
And ere a twelvemonth pass'd his mother died."

In Derbyshire, among many other places, it is believed that the catching and killing of a robin, or taking the eggs from the nest, is sure to be followed by misfortune, such as the death of cattle, blight of corn, etc. The folks say—

"Robins and wrens
Are God's best cocks and hens.
Martins and swallows
Are God's best scholars."

In Yorkshire, if a robin is killed, it is believed that the family cow will give bloody milk.

_The Cuckoo._

A superstition prevails in Ireland, and in some parts of England, that any young person, on first hearing the cuckoo, will find a hair of the color of their sweetheart's adhering to their stocking, if they will at once take off their left shoe and examine it carefully. Gay, in his "Shepherd's Week," says—

"Upon a rising bank I sat adown,
Then doff'd my shoe, and, by my troth, I swear
Therein I spied this yellow frizzled hair,
As like to Lubberkin's in curl and hue
As if upon his comely pate it grew."

In Norfolk there is a belief that an unmarried person will remain single as many years as the cuckoo utters its call, when first heard in the spring. Subjoined is an old English invocation—

"Cuckoo, cherry-tree,
Good bird, tell me,
How many years I have to live?"

At the first call of the cuckoo the German peasant does the same thing as when he hears thunder for the first time in the year. He rolls himself two or three times on the grass, thinking himself thereby insured against pains in the back throughout the rest of the year, and all the more so if the bird continues its cry whilst he is on the ground.

If the first note of the cuckoo comes upon you when you have no money in your pocket, it is held, both in Germany and England, to portend want of money throughout the year.

A valuable virtue is attributed to cuckoos in keeping off fleas. In Hill's "Naturall and Artificiall Conclusions," (1650), we find: "A very easie and merry conceit to keep off fleas from your beds or chambers. Pliny reporteth that if, when you first hear the cuckow, you mark well where your first foot standeth, and take up that earth, the fleas will by no means breed where any of the same earth is thrown or scattered." This belief still exists in some parts of France.

_Why the Cuckoo Builds no Nest._

"If you wish to know," says Horace Marryat, in his "Jutland and the Danish Isles," "why the cuckoo builds no nest of its own, I can easily explain it, according to the belief in Denmark. When in early spring-time the voice of the cuckoo is first heard in the woods, every village girl kisses her hand, and asks the question: 'Cuckoo! cuckoo! when shall I be married?' And the old folks, borne down with age and rheumatism, inquire: 'Cuckoo! when shall I be relieved from this world's cares?' The bird, in answer, continues singing 'Cuckoo!' as many times as years will elapse before the object of their desires will come to pass. But as many old people live to an advanced age, and many girls die old maids, the poor bird has so much to do in answering the questions put to her, that the building season goes by; she has no time to make her nest, but lays her eggs in the nest of the hedge-sparrow."

_The Magpie._

The magpie has always had many superstitions connected with it. _One_ magpie foretells misfortune, which can be obviated, however, by pulling off the hat and making a polite bow to the bird. In Lancashire the saying is—

"One for anger, two for mirth,
Three for a wedding, four for a birth,
Five for rich, six for poor,
Seven for a witch, I can tell you no more."

To meet a magpie portends misfortune in a journey, and it is thought best to return. It is the usual habit of the peasants to cross themselves when they meet a single chattering magpie. In the north of England the bird is thus addressed—

"Magpie, magpie, chatter and flee,
Turn up thy tail, and good luck fall me."

Of all living creatures in Russia, magpies are those whose shapes witches like best to take. The wife of the false Demetrius, according to popular poetry, escaped from Moscow in the guise of a magpie.

_Why the Magpie Builds but Half a Nest._

The half-nest of the magpie is accounted for by a rural ornithological legend. Once on a time, when the world was very young, the magpie, by some accident or other, although she was quite as cunning as she is at present, was the only bird that was unable to build a nest. In this perplexity she applied to the other members of the feathered race, who kindly undertook to instruct her. So, on a day appointed, they assembled for the purpose, and, the materials having been collected, the blackbird said, "Place that stick there," suiting the action to the word, as she commenced the work. "Ah!" said the magpie, "I knew that before." The other birds followed with their suggestions, but to every piece of advice the magpie kept saying, "Ah! I knew that before." At length, when the nest was half finished, the patience of the company was fairly exhausted by the pertinacious conceit of the magpie; so all left her, with the united exclamation, "Well, Mistress Mag, as you seem to know all about it, you may finish the nest yourself." Their resolution was obdurate and final, and to this day the magpie exhibits the effects of partial instruction by her incomplete abode.

_A Swallow Drinks the King's Health._

Aubrey, in his "Miscellanies," relates that "At Stretton, in Hertfordshire, 1648, when Charles I. was prisoner, the tenant of the manor-house there sold excellent cyder to gentlemen of the neighborhood. Among others that met there was old Mr. Hill, B. D., parson of the parish, _quondam_ Fellow of Brazennose College at Oxford. This venerable good old man one day (after his accustomed fashion), standing up, with his head uncovered, to drink his Majesty's health, saying, 'God bless our gracious sovereign,' as he was going to put the cup to his lips, a swallow flew in at the window, and pitched on the brim of the little earthen cup (not half a pint) and sipt, and so flew out again. This was in the presence of the aforesaid Parson Hill, Major Gwillim, and two or three more that I knew very well then, my neighbors, and whose joint testimony of it I have more than once had in that very room. It was in the bay-window of the parlor, and Mr. Hill's back was next to the window. The cup is preserved there still as a rarity."

_Birds of Paradise._

These birds have been the subject of many a fable. Old naturalists describe them as being destitute of feet, dwelling in the air, without an abiding place, nourished by dews and the odor of flowers. Tavernier relates, "that they come in flocks during the nutmeg season to the south cities of India. The strength of the nutmeg intoxicates them, and while they lie in this state on the earth, the ants eat off their legs!" Moore says, in his "Lalla Rookh—"

"Those golden birds that in the spice-time drop
About the gardens, drunk with that sweet fruit
Whose scent hath lur'd them o'er the summer flood."

The natives of New Guinea and the neighboring islands looked upon the skins of these birds as sacred, and as charms against the dangers of war. In preparing them, the legs of the bird were cut off in a manner that gave rise to the idea, when the skins were exported from the islands, that the birds were legless.

"But thou art still that Bird of Paradise,
Which hath no feet, and ever nobly flies."

_The Owl._

The owl, "the fatal bellman which gives the sternest good night," was the dread of the superstitious from the earliest times. Virgil introduces the owl among the prodigies and horrors that foreran the suicide of Dido. It was said that two large owls would perch upon the battlements of Wardour Castle whenever an Arundel's last hour had come. The cry of the owl is heard by Lady Macbeth, during the murder. Hogarth introduces the owl in the murder scene of his "Four Stages of Cruelty."

The Ethiopians, when they wished to pronounce sentence of death upon any person, carried to him a table upon which an owl was painted. When the guilty man saw it, he was expected to destroy himself with his own hand. To the peasants, the cry of the owl foretells hail and rain, accompanied by lightning. The practice of nailing the bird to a barn-door, to avert evil consequences, is common throughout Europe, and is mentioned by Palladius in his "Treatise on Agriculture." Pliny wrote: "If an owl be seen either within cities or otherwise abroad in any place, it is not for good, but prognosticates some fearful misfortune."

_The Phœnix._

The Rabbins tell us "that all the birds having complied with the first woman, and, with her, having eaten of the forbidden fruit, except the phœnix, as a reward it obtained a sort of immortality. It lived five hundred years in the wilderness; then making a nest of spices, it lighted it by the wafting of its wings, and the body was consumed. From the ashes arose a worm which grew up to be a phœnix." Moore, in "Paradise and the Peri," alludes to

The enchanted pile of that lonely bird
Who sings at the last his own death-lay,
And in music and perfumes dies away.

"The myth of the phœnix," says George Stephens, in Archæologia, "is one of the most ancient in the world. Originally a temple type of the immortality of the soul, its birthplace appears to have been the sunny clime of the fanciful and gorgeous East. Even in the days of Job and David it was already a popular tradition in Palestine and Arabia."

Herodotus describes the phœnix in the following words: "The plumage is partly red, partly golden, while the general make and size are almost exactly that of the eagle. They tell a story in Egypt of what this bird does, which appears incredible,—that he comes all the way from Arabia, and brings the parent bird, all plastered over with myrrh, to the Temple of the Sun, and there buries the body. In order to bring him, they say, he first forms a ball of myrrh as big as he finds that he can carry; then he hollows out the ball and puts his parent inside, after which he covers over the opening with fresh myrrh, and the ball is then exactly of the same weight as at first. So he brings it to Egypt, as I have said, and deposits it in the Temple of the Sun." Ariosto alludes to this fable in the voyage of Astolfo—

"Arabia, named the Happy, now he gains;
Incense and myrrh perfume her grateful plains;
The virgin phœnix there, in need of rest,
Selects from all the world her balmy nest."

The phœnix, as a sign over chemists' shops, was adopted from the association of this fabulous bird with alchemy.

_The Wren._

The story of the contest for the crown, in which the wren outwitted the eagle, is traditional in Germany, France, Ireland and other countries. It seems that the birds all met together one day, and settled among themselves that which ever of them could fly the highest was to be king of them all. As they were starting, the wren, unknown to the eagle, perched himself on his tail. Away flew the birds, and the eagle soared far above the others, until, tired, he perched himself on a rock, and declared that he had gained the victory. "Not so fast," cried the wren, getting off the tail and springing above the eagle; "you have lost your chance, and I am king of the birds." The eagle, angry at the trick played upon him, gave the wren, as he came down, a smart stroke with his wing, from which time the wren has never been able to fly higher than a hawthorn bush.

The story is told with a different conclusion in Germany. According to the German version, the tricky wren was imprisoned in a mouse-hole, and the owl was set to watch before it, whilst the other birds were deliberating upon the punishment to be inflicted upon the offender. The owl fell asleep, and the prisoner escaped. The owl was so ashamed that he has never ventured to show himself by daylight.

In the Ojibua legend the gray linnet is the tricky bird, and the verdict was rendered in favor of the eagle, for he not only flew nearest to the sun, but carried the linnet with him.

In France the wren is called _roitelet_ (little king), and also _poulette au bon Dieu_, "God's little hen." To kill it or to rob its nest would bring down lightning on the culprit's head. Robert Chambers, in "Popular Rhymes," says—

"Malisons, malisons, mair than ten
That harry the Ladye of Heaven's hen."

At Carcasonne the wren was carried about on a staff adorned with a garland of olive, oak and mistletoe. In the Isle of Man the wren is believed to be a transformed fairy.

_White-breasted Birds._

In Devonshire the appearance of a white-breasted bird has long been considered an omen of death. This belief has been traced to a circumstance which happened to the Oxenham family in that county, and related by Howell, in his "Familiar Letters," wherein is the following monumental inscription: "Here lies John Oxenham, a goodly young man, in whose chamber, as he was struggling with the pangs of death, a bird with a white breast was seen fluttering about his bed, and so vanished." The same circumstance is related of his sister Mary, and two or three others of the family.

_The Penguin's Solitary Egg._

The female penguin of Patagonia does not commit her offspring to any kind of nest. She constantly carries her solitary egg in a pouch formed by a fold in the skin of the abdomen, and it is held so fast in this that she leaps or sometimes rolls from rock to rock without letting it fall. It is well for her she does so, for should such a mishap befall her the male bird chastises her without pity.

_The Crocodile Plover._

One of the best friends of the crocodile is a little bird of the plover species. The mouth of the reptile is infested with painful parasites, and the bird fearlessly flies into the open jaws and picks out the insects. The crocodile appears to be conscious of this kindly office, for it never offers to hurt its little feathered friend.

_Peacocks' Crests._

In ancient times peacocks' crests were among the ornaments of the kings of England. Ernald de Aclent (Acland) "paid a fine to King John in a hundred and forty palfries, with sackbuts, gilt spurs and peacocks' crests, such as would be for his credit."

_Worshipful Cranes._

Tame cranes, kept in the Middle Ages, are said to have stood before the table at dinner, and kneeled and bowed the head when a bishop pronounced the benediction. But how they knelt is as fairly open to inquiry as how Dives could take his seat in torment, as he did, according to an old carol, "all on a serpent's knee."

_The Great Auk._

Pennant says that this bird never wanders beyond soundings, by which sailors are assured that land is not very remote. Aristophanes tells us that the Greek mariners, more than two thousand years ago, made note of the habits and movements of birds.

"From birds, in sailing, men instructions take,
Now lie in port, now sail and profit make."

_The Kingfisher._

Sir Thomas Brown, in his "Vulgar Errors," says: "A kingfisher hanged by the bill sheweth what quarter the wind is, by an occult and secret property, converting the breast to that part of the horizon from whence the wind doth blow. This is a received opinion, and very strange, introducing natural weathercocks and extending magnetical positions as far as animal natures, a conceit supported chiefly by present practice, yet not made out by reason nor experience." The ancients believed that so long as the female kingfishers sat on their eggs, no storm or tempest disturbed the ocean. In Wild's "Iter Boreale," we read—

"The peaceful kingfishers are met together
About the decks, and prophesy calm weather."

Gmelin, in his "Voyage en Sibérie," says that "the Tartars believe that if they touch a woman, or even her clothes, with a feather from a kingfisher, she must fall in love with them. The Ostiacs take the skin, the bill and the claws of this bird, shut them up in a purse, and so long as they preserve this sort of amulet they believe they have no ill to fear. The person who told me of this means of living happily could not forbear shedding tears, for the loss of a kingfisher's skin had caused him to lose both his wife and his goods."

_The Albatross._

The albatross is remarkable for its migrations; indeed, it may almost be said to pass from pole to pole, and is seen at a greater distance from land than any other bird. Hence sailors regard this companion of their voyage with superstitious fondness. Coleridge speaks of the albatross in his "Ancient Mariner"—

And all averr'd I had killed the bird
That made the breezes to blow;
"A wretch," said they, "the bird to slay,
That made the breezes to blow."

_The Stork._

A feeling of attachment, not devoid of superstition, procures the stork an unmolested life in all Moslem countries. The Dutch regard them as birds of good omen, and a wagon-wheel is often laid upon the house-top for the stork to build his nest on, during which time the house is safe from fire. It is sometimes called by them the "fire-fowl" and "baby-bringer."

In North Germany, the first time in the year that a girl hears the stork, if it clatter with its bill, she will break something; if it be flying, she will be a bride before the year is out; if it be standing, she will be asked to stand godmother.

Storks are "fabled" to be very attentive to their aged parents, carrying them from place to place and feeding them if they are blind. Aristophanes says—

"'Tis an ancient law
Among the birds, on the storks' tables writ,
Soon as the father stork hath nourished all
His brood, and made them fit for flight, in turn
The younglings should support their aged sire."

_Cocks and Hens._

Schweinfurth, in his "Heart of Africa," gives the following curious auguries from cocks and hens, common to various negro tribes: "An oily fluid, concocted from a red wood called 'Bengye,' is administered to a hen. If the bird dies, there will be misfortune in war; if it survives, there will be victory. Another mode of trying their fortune consists in seizing a cock and ducking its head repeatedly under water, until the creature is stiff and senseless. They then leave it to itself. If it should rally, they draw an omen that is favorable to their design: if it should succumb, they look for an adverse issue."

A curious notion respecting fowls existed in various parts of England. On the morning of St. Valentine's day, the girls, before opening the outer door, would look into the yard through the key-hole. If they saw a cock and hen in company, it was taken for granted that the person most interested would be married before the year was out.

In Hooker's "Tour in Morocco," recently published, he mentions that in a storm in the heights of the Atlas, one of his attendants cut the throat of a cock he carried, to appease the wrath of the demons of the mountains.

Mr. Dalyell, in his "Darker Superstitions of Scotland," observes that during the prevalence of infectious diseases in the East, a cock was killed over the bed of the invalid, sprinkling him with the blood. A red cock was dedicated by sick persons in Ceylon to a malignant divinity, and afterwards offered as a sacrifice in the event of recovery.

In "Credulities Past and Present," it is stated that "in Durham there is a superstition that if any person was bewitched, the author of the evil might be discovered by the following means: To _steal_ a black hen, take out the heart, stick it full of pins, and roast it at midnight. The 'double' of the witch would come and nearly pull the door down. If the 'double' was not seen, any one of the neighbors who had passed a remarkably bad night was fixed upon!"

_Led by a Gander._

In Germany an aged blind woman was led to church every Sunday by a gander, which dragged her along, holding her gown in his beak. As soon as the old woman was seated in her pew the gander retired to the church-yard to feed upon the grass, and when the service was ended he conducted his mistress to her home.—_Menault._

_Crows Lost in a Fog._

The Hartford Times tells a curious story of a flock of crows in that vicinity who recently lost their way in a fog. They lost their bearings at a point directly above the South Green, in Hartford. For a good while they hovered there, coming low down, circling and diving aimlessly about, like a blindfolded person in "blind man's buff," and keeping up a hoarse cawing and general racket beyond description. It was plain enough that of the entire company each individual crow was not only puzzled and bothered, but highly indignant, and inclined to utter "cuss words" in his frantic attempts to be heard above the general din, and tell the others which way to go. Once or twice the whole flock swept down to a distance of not more than one hundred feet above the street. Finally, after going around for many times, they sailed away in a southerly direction, evidently having got some clue to the way out of the fog, or desperately resolved to go _somewhere_ till they could see daylight.

_The Peacock at Home._

Peacocks are found in almost all parts of India and Siam, and the multitudes in which they occur in some districts is wonderful. Colonel Williamson, in his "Oriental Field Sports," says: "About the passes in the Jungletery district whole woods were covered with the beautiful plumage, to which a rising sun imparted additional brilliancy. I speak within bounds when I assert that there could not have been less than 1200 or 1500 pea-fowls, of various sizes, within sight of the spot where I stood." Sir James Emerson Tennent says, in his work on Ceylon, "that in some of the unfrequented portions of the eastern province, to which Europeans rarely resort, and where the pea-fowl are unmolested by the natives, their number is so extraordinary that, regarded as game, it ceased to be sport to destroy them; and their cries at early morning are so tumultuous and incessant as to banish sleep, and amount to an actual inconvenience."

_Story of the Dodo._

This extinct bird was a native of Mauritius, in the Indo-African Ocean, and was first described by Van Neck, a Dutchman, in 1598, in which year a living specimen was embarked for Holland, but died on its way. This specimen is supposed to have been preserved at Leyden; and one of the feet is believed to be that in the British Museum. Several successive voyagers mention the bird, down to Canche, in 1638, in which year a living dodo was brought to England by Sir Hamon l'Estrange, who describes the back as of "dunn or deare colour." It was exhibited for money in London, in a house which bore a figure of the bird represented on canvas. This specimen has been traced to Tradescant's Museum at Lambeth, whence it was conveyed, in 1682, to Oxford by Ashmole. The body and a leg were destroyed by vermin before 1775, but the other leg and the head are preserved to this day in the Ashmolean Museum, in which place there also is a large drawing of a dodo, taken from nature, by John Savery. It was not related to the ostrich or the vulture, as many have supposed, but was closely allied to the pigeons and the solitaire bird seen by Leguat in the Island of Rodrigeux in 1691.—_Wells._

_An Old Gander._

Willoughby states, in his work on Ornithology, that a friend of his possessed a gander eighty years of age, which in the end became so ferocious that they were forced to kill it, in consequence of the havoc it committed in the barn-yard. He also mentions a swan three centuries old and several parrots that attained the age of one hundred and fifty years.

_Chaffinch Contest._

At the town of Armentières, in France, there is a _fete du pays_, in which the chaffinch and its fellows are the chief actors and objects of attraction. Numbers of these birds are trained with the greatest care and no small share of cruelty, for they are frequently blinded by their owners, that their song may not be interrupted by the sight of any external object. The point upon which the amusement, the honor and the emolument rests is the number of times a bird will repeat his song in a given time.

A day being fixed, the amateurs repair to the appointed place, each with his bird in a cage. The prize is then displayed, and the birds are placed in a row. A bird-fancier notes how many times each bird sings, and another verifies his notes. In the year 1812, a chaffinch repeated his song seven hundred times in one hour. Emulated by the songs of each other, they strain their little plumed throats, as if conscious that honor was to result from their exertions.

_The Fabulous Roc._

The roc, the huge bird that gave Sindbad the sailor his ride through the air, is not to be compared with some of those mentioned in the Talmud. Some mariners saw one of those large birds standing up to the lower joint of the leg in a river, and thinking the water could not be deep, they were hastening to bathe, when a voice from heaven said: "Step not in there; seven years ago a carpenter dropped his axe there, and it hath not yet reached the bottom."

_Fable of the Pelican._

The pelicans are said to carry water to their young, as well as food, in their pouch. During the night the pelican sits with its bill resting on its breast. The nail or hook which terminates the bill is red, and Mr. Broderip supposes that the ancient fable of the pelican feeding its young with blood from its own breast originated from its habit of pressing the bill upon the breast in order the more easily to empty the pouch, when the red tip might be mistaken for blood.

_Night Owls._

It is worthy of remark that in all owls that fly by night the exterior edges and sides of the wing-quills are slightly recurved, and end in fine hairs or points, by means of which the bird can pass through the air with the greatest silence—a provision necessary to enable it the better to surprise its prey.—_Adam White._

_Imprisoned During Incubation._

In his work on "The Birds of India," M. Jerdon details the curious domestic arrangements of some species of the genus Homrain of French naturalists, the males of which, at the time of laying, imprison the female in her nest. They close the entrance to it by means of a thick wall of mud, leaving only a small hole by which the hen breathes and through which she protrudes her beak to receive food, which is brought by her spouse. Though barbarous enough to imprison her, he is not cruel enough to starve her. This forced retirement only ceases with the termination of the hatching, when the pair break the prison door.

_Love-Birds._

These birds receive their name from the affection which they manifest towards one another. Anatomically, this genus is remarkable in the parrot tribe for having no furcula, or merry-thought bone.

_Penguin Breeding Grounds._

These birds often occupy acres for their breeding ground, which is laid out and leveled and divided into squares, as nicely as if done by a surveyor. They march between the compartments as accurately as soldiers on parade, and somewhat resembling them from a distance, or, according to another similitude which has been used, looking like bands of little children in white aprons. Bennett describes one breeding ground on Macquarie Island as covering thirty or forty acres, and, to give some notion of the multitudes, speaks of 30,000 or 40,000 birds as continually landing, and as many putting to sea.

_The Ear of Birds not to be Deceived._

A bird-catcher, wishing to increase his stock of bullfinches, took out his caged bird and his limed twigs and placed them in such a situation of hedge and bush as he judged favorable to his success. It so happened that his own bird was an educated one, such as is usually termed a piping bullfinch. In the first instance a few accidentally thrown out natural notes or calls had attracted three or four of his kindred feather, which had taken their station not far distant from the cage. There they stood in doubt and curiosity, and, presently, moving inch by inch and hop by hop toward him and the fatal twigs, they again became stationary and attentive. It was in this eager and suspended moment that the piping bullfinch set up the old country dance-tune of "Nancy Dawson." Away flew every astonished bullfinch as fast as wings could move, in confusion and alarm.

_A Bird Hammock._

In his voyage to India, Sonnerat speaks of a Cape titmouse, the nest of which is made of cotton and is shaped like a bottle. While the female is hatching inside, the male, a most watchful sentinel, remains outside in a pouch or hammock, fixed to one side of the neck of the nest. When his mate moves off and he wishes to follow her, he beats the opening of the nest violently with his wing until he closes it, in order to protect the young from enemies.

_Sagacity of a Bird._

In the museum of Brown University, Providence, R. I., is a curiosity in the shape of a bird's nest. Aside from its ingenious construction as a swinging nest, partly suspended by strings and cords carefully woven into it and around the slender branch which holds it, another evidence of the builder's sagacity is given. As the young birds grew, and the nest daily became heavier, the mother saw that the slender twig, about the thickness of a pipe-stem, to which it was attached, could not support it much longer, so she made it secure by fastening a stout cord about it and passing the end around a strong limb above, which steadied it and made it safe.

_Change of Sight in Birds._

Birds destined to move in the medium of a very rare atmosphere and which has but little tendency to refract the rays of the sun, have a great quantity of aqueous humor, in order that the light, strongly refracted in entering their eyes, may bring distinct images. Thus birds at heights where they appear to us only as points, perceive the smallest reptile concealed in the grass. But, as presbyte birds do not distinguish objects when brought near, nature has provided for this difficulty, which occurs when they descend from the heights of the air to seize their prey. To provide for this emergency, they have a membrane, by means of which they remove the crystalline lens from the retina; and thus changing the power of the eye by changing the focal distance of objects, as we do with spectacles, they never lose sight of their prey, whether in the air or on the ground.

_Nest of the Flamingo._

The flamingo arranges its nest in a peculiar way, as its long legs would not adapt themselves to the ordinary style of nest-building. The nests are placed upon the ground, are built solely of coarsely-tempered mud, and are very curiously shaped, being like narrow, lengthened cones. They are twenty inches in height, and their truncated summit presents a concavity, at the bottom of which the female deposits her eggs. In order to hatch them she places her abdomen over them, and allows her legs to hang down on both sides of the raised nest.

_Barking of Dogs._

The Australian dog never barks; indeed, Gardiner, in his "Music of Nature," states "that dogs in a state of nature never bark; they simply whine, howl and growl; the explosive noise is only heard among those which are domesticated." Sonnini speaks of the shepherd dogs in the wilds of Egypt as not having this faculty; and Columbus found the dogs which he had previously carried to America to have lost their propensity for barking.

_Superstitions about Eggs._

Thiers, in his "Traité des Superstitions," observes that he has known people who preserved all the year such eggs as are laid on Good Friday, as they think them good to extinguish fires when thrown on them.