WOLVES AND BIRDS OF PREY. 145 



and nourished them. Their discovery at the wolf-den by Faustulus, 

 the king's shepherd, led to their ultimate return to their grandfather 

 Numitor and to the foundation of Rome. 



Tradition has attributed to Zoroaster a miraculous protection at 

 the hand of she-wolves. When a child he was stolen from his house 

 by some evil-minded persons, who predicted a great blow to their 

 evil cause at the hand of the child when it came to age. They took 

 the child to a den of wolves at a time when the ferocious beasts were 

 absent from their home, killed* their young ones, and placed the 

 child there, with a view that the wolves on their return, finding their 

 young ones thus killed, might wreck their vengeance upon the 

 child. The wolves on their return seeing what had taken place 

 at first grew furious, but soon after took the deserted child under 

 their protection, until it was discovered and taken home by the 

 mother, who was wandering in search of the child. 



Old classical literature gives us other instances where young 

 children were nourished and brought up, not by wolves, but 

 by ferocious birds. Firdousi, the great Homer of the East, in his 

 well-known Persian epic, the Shah-nameh, says of the father 

 of Rustom, the great national hero of Iran, the Hercules of Persia, 

 that he was brought up by a ferocious bird, called Simorg, which, 

 according to the great Persian historian, Sir John Malcolm, is the 

 same as the bird Rokh, and which according to some authors is 

 the same as the Griffin, and according to others the same as the 

 Phoenix. It was called Simorg (i. e., 30 birds), because it was 

 thought to be as strong singly as 30 other large birds combined. 

 According to Firdousi, in the time of king Minocheher, the wife 

 of Sam, the Persian General, gave birth to a son, whose body 

 was all covered with gray hairs like that of an old man. Just 

 as William II. was surnamed Rufus, from the redness of his 

 hair, just as Pyrrhus was so called from the yellowness of his 

 curls, and just as the family of Julius Cassar derived its surname 

 of Csesar from the fact of its founder having a thick curl of hair 

 (Lat. caes-ar-ies, Sans. if.^, kesa), so this child of Sam was called 

 Zal-i-zar, i. e., golden-haired old man. The great Persian General 

 Sam disliked this ugly-looking child, and thought that it brought 

 shame and disgrace upon the family, so he sent the child 

 away to the Caucasus to be exposed on Mount Elburz. "While 

 there the bird Simorg came to prey upon it, but instead of 

 devouring the child, had compassion on it, and took it to its own 



