Preface 



primitive men, and to men long after civili- 

 zation was strong, such traits and powers 

 suggested beings that need never die ; they 

 readily conceived of souls as birds and birds 

 as supernatural creatures. 



In the study of man*s groping toward re- 

 ligious belief one factor has been much neg- 

 lected : the influence of birds and beasts on 

 what may be called prehistoric religion. Yet 

 in the daily life of primitive men and savages 

 these were and are as important as more strik- 

 ing objects in the sky, such as sun, moon and 

 stars, rainbow and northern light, dawn and 

 sunset, thunderstorm and the winds. Is it 

 not a fair question to ask, whether the primi- 

 tive mind did not first invest the world of 

 animals with mystery, because they are objects 

 near at hand, within their limited horizon, and 

 only afterward rise to the point of grasping 

 the heavenly bodies as beings endowed with 



supernatural power ? 



viii 



