22 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



from its original sense, as when in Henry VI Shakespeare 

 makes La Pucelle exclaim: "Expect St. Martin's sum- 

 mer, halcyon days," St. Martin's summer being the 

 English name for that warm spell in November known to 

 us as Indian summer. All this is an extended example 

 of the kind of poetic myth which has been told of many 

 different birds, and which in this book is left to be sought 

 out in treatises on mythology. 



In contrast with this sort of tale I find many non- 

 mythical notions, historical or existing, concerning the 

 actual kingfisher, which properly belong to my scheme. 

 One of the oldest is the custom formerly in vogue in 

 England, and more recently in France, of turning this 

 bird into a weathercock. The body of a mummified king- 

 fisher with extended wings would be suspended by a 

 thread, nicely balanced, in order to show the direction 

 of the wind, as in that posture it would always turn its 

 beak, even when hung inside the house, toward the point 

 of the compass whence the breeze blew. Kent, in King 

 Lear, speaks of rogues who 



Turn their halcyon beaks 

 With every gale and vary of their masters. 



And after Shakespeare Marlowe, in his Jew of Malta, 

 says: 



But how stands the wind? 



Into what corner peers my halcyon's bill? 



We are told mat the fishermen of the British and French 

 coasts hang these kingfisher weathervanes in the rigging 

 of their boats ; and it seems likely to me that it was among 

 sailors that the custom began. 



