FABLE AND FOLKLORE 13 



based, as heretofore intimated, on the almost universal 

 belief that they are often the visible spirits of the dead. 

 The Powhatans of Virginia, for example, held that the 

 feathered race received the souls of their chiefs at death; 

 and a California tribe asserted that the small birds whose 

 hard luck it was to receive the souls of bad men were 

 chased and destroyed by hawks, so that those of good 

 Indians alone reached the happy hunting-grounds beyond 

 the sky. 



James G. Swan relates in his interesting old book about 

 early days at Puget Sound, 10 that the Indians at Shoal- 

 water Bay, Oregon, were much disturbed one morning 

 because they had heard the whistling of a plover in the 

 night. The white men there told them it was only a 

 bird's crying, but they insisted the noise was that of 

 spirits. Said they: "Birds don't talk in the night; they 

 talk in the daytime." "But," asked Russell, "how can you 

 tell that it is the memelose tillicunis, or dead people? 

 They can't talk." "No," replied the savage, "it is true they 

 can't talk as we do, but they whistle through their teeth. 

 You are a white man and do not understand what they 

 say, but Indians know." 



This bit of untainted savage philosophy recalls the 

 queer British superstition of the Seven Whistlers. 

 Wordsworth, who was a North-countryman, records of 

 his ancient Dalesman — 



He the seven birds hath seen that never part, 

 Seen the Seven Whistlers on their nightly rounds 

 And counted them. 



The idea that the wailing of invisible birds is a warning 

 of danger direct from Providence prevails especially in 

 the English colliery districts, where wildfowl, migrating 



