Evening star., 1924-03-25
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
BIRDS IN LEGEND. FABLE AND
FOLKLORE. Ernest Ingersoll.


Right now spring Is turning over
for the last forty winks before step
ping out of her winter bed. The hu-
man, without knowing why, has for
some time been restless under the
padding covers. And one morning
next week-or tomorrow, maybe-out
in the park or along the roadway,
you will see spring poised in the
early sunlight, a straight young
goddess. birds circling round
her head and lighting upon her
shoulders in a rapturous clamor OF
welcome. Now, it is just possible
that you may not catch clearly this
lovely bodily presence OF spring, but
you will surely see and hear these
her attendants and harbingers. And
your expectant restlessness will pass
Of springtime and the birds.
+ X
So it is time, you see, to take
stocks of dried bird Skins out of the
moth balls for a contemplation of
the wondrous works Of God in the
fair domain OF nature. Time, too, to
prod and pry among these rags of
feather. beak and claw-once light
and flight and song-to examine them,
10 measure them and to set down in
away such general facts about them
and such special features as have
survived earlier maulings at the
hands OF other bird enthusiasts. This
Is the familiar Bertillon gesture bent
upon future identifications. An at
tempt, as well, to set off the Smith
family OF birds from that of the
Browns. the Joneses and the John
sons. A crafty circumvention, be-
sides. of the natural f1ightiness OF
olrds that preciudes, in the open, any
such dead reckoning with them. The
whole fusty to-do is merely one of
the accepted ways of getting ready
TO TO meet springtime and the birds.
pseudoscientific one. Nimrod will
meet them with a gun. The man of
ASSIST and his kind as If they were
blood brothers coming back home
again. Some this way, some that
Many a common bird-lover will meet
them by just sitting around, quiet
IKE, days on end, watching the be-
naviors of these busy. happy. thrifty
folks, doing them a good turn row
and then as the chance offers.
Out OF all creation birds must have
been the prime marvel TO man in his
beginnings. With no store of re-
corded knowledge. such as we pos
sess. 10 point out and explain things:
ages before the ornithOlogist or any
other son Of science had been thought
or. these creatures. so astoundingly
olrerent from all the other life forms
around MIN. must have stirred that
new man to both wonder and fear
the first of his emotions. Bits of the
rainbow, these, shreds of daWn-cloud
brilliant flower growths loosened
from the soil, cleaving the air in
easy or daring flight, uttering sounds
SO helooious, so haunting as TO pierce
the newly besotteu soul of this pri-
mordial man. No wonder that around
the birds there grew a thousand fan
ciful inventions for the explanation
of wholly inexplicable world.
x X y
Ernest Ingersor, man of experience
and achievement in the field of ma
ture, assumes, fairly. that the
markedly Quickened general interest
of recent years in bird life will be
increased and enriched by some
knowledge of how earlier peoples
looked upon these flying forms of
creation. Out of such assumption he
offers this book of legend, fable. folk
lore-a compact, well ordered, ac-
cessible source Of information on the
subject. Its substance is drawn from
atancSfron meSf tribal superstitiens.
from theories and practices of an
cient civilizations, from persistent
fragments of half-belief influential
TO this day with many Of us, denlais
to the contrary Notwithstanding.
Once upon a time. it turns out here,
the power of speech was a common
thing among birds. In sacred writ no
less an authority than the good proph-
ct Elijah stands for this: "A bird of
the air shall tell thee the matter"
As for Solomon. who must have been
a most lovable wise man, he was for
ever couoQuin' with this feathered
friend or that one. Indeed-to step
out of the Bible and away from this
birds loved Solomon so well that when
he travelled across the desert clouds
of them went along, making a per
feet canopy of themselves to shleld
him from the sun. That must have
been a pretty thing to see. And birds
were no end useful, sit appears, in
bringing Solomon and the Queen OF
Sheba together. Outside OF sacred
writ-which, of course, makes the
matter somewhat less dependable.
the birds. once upon time. could
talk From the deserts of the far
east to the plains and forests of North
America, wandering peoples unite TO
declare it in rich detail and pictur-
esuue circumstance. To this day the
Breton peasant knows that when oc-
casion is great enough to require It,
the birds will come forward with
| words of guidance or warning. "A
little bird told me-" which you your,
heart of an old and far-reachIng body
of belief.
In the thousand and one aspects
of bird lore set down here, it is
pleasant to come upon some of our
own familiar. friends There is the
dove-to us the pigeon of our parks
and streets. A most honorable bird
without which--or whom-Noah
would have been in sore straits for
himself and his family and all the
animals shut up in the ark out of the
wet You recall how Noah sent the
dove out to wing the waste waters in
quest of land, and how, after many
days, the bird returned with the good
word of hope. And Noah blessed the
| dove and laid around its neck the
circlet of green and shining feathers
that it has worn forever since-aS
you may see on any sunny day. 1t
| was in that deluge also that the
pigeon got his pink feet and legs.
Standing knee-deep-so to speak
for long time in the salt water. the
pigeon found it's legs a deep pink,
scalded bare SO that thereafter no
feathers would grow upon them. So
when you see a bare-legged pigeon
! in coral pink boots you may know
| that this is a lineal descendant OF
Noahs first aid in a land rescue from
the deluge. Interesting? l think so,
True? 1 don't know. Interesting any
way. The dove has many virtues be-
eide that of lnXal friendshin q