The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical Part 41

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, 'G.o.d 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 dest.i.tute 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 n.o.bly flies."

_The Owl._

The owl, "the fatal bellman which gives the sternest good night," was the dread of the superst.i.tious 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 p.r.o.nounce 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 Phnix._

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 phnix, 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 phnix." 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 phnix," says George Stephens, in Archaeologia, "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 phnix 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 phnix there, in need of rest, Selects from all the world her balmy nest."

The phnix, as a sign over chemists' shops, was adopted from the a.s.sociation 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_, "G.o.d'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 circ.u.mstance 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 circ.u.mstance 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.

_Peac.o.c.ks' Crests._

In ancient times peac.o.c.ks' 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 peac.o.c.ks'

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 p.r.o.nounced 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 a.s.sured 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 weatherc.o.c.ks 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 Siberie," 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._