FABLE AND FOLKLORE 7 



Mikey lived to become a drunkard, is the unfeeling com- 

 ment of the reporter of this touching incident in The 

 Journal of American Folklore. 



"One constantly hears by day the note of the limocon, 

 a wood-pigeon which exercises a most extraordinary 

 interest over the lives of many of the wild people, for 

 they believe that the direction and nature of its notes 

 augur good or ill for the enterprises they have in hand." 

 This memorandum, in Dean Worcester's valuable book 

 on the Philippines, 3 is apt to the purpose of this intro- 

 ductory chapter, leading me to say that the continuing 

 reader will find doves (which are much the same in all 

 parts of the world) conspicuous in legend, fable and 

 ceremony; also that the "direction and nature" of their 

 voices, as heard, is one of the most important elements 

 in the consideration of birds in general as messengers 

 and prophets — functions to which I shall often have oc- 

 casion to refer, and on which are founded the ancient 

 systems of bird-divination. 



In these United States little superstition relating to 

 animals has survived, partly because the wild creatures 

 here were strange to the pioneers, who were poorly ac- 

 quainted with their characteristics, but mainly because 

 such fears and fancies were left in the Old World with 

 other rubbish not worth the freight-charges; yet a few 

 quaint notions came along, like small heirlooms of no 

 particular value that folks dislike to throw away until 

 they must. Almost all such mental keepsakes belong to 

 people in the backward parts of the country, often with 

 an ill-fitting application to local birds. A conspicuous 

 disappearance is that venerable body of forebodings and 

 fancies attached to the European cuckoo, totally unknown 

 or disregarded here, because our American cuckoos have 



