FABLE AND FOLKLORE 73 



that "this may be believed if we consider that when the 

 raven hath hatched her eggs she takes no further care, 

 but leaves her young ones to the care of the God of 

 Nature, who is said in the Psalms 'to feed the young 

 that call upon him.' And they be kept alive, and fed 

 by a dew, or worms that breed in their nests, or some 

 other ways that we mortals know not." 



The origin of this is plain. The ancient Jews told one 

 another that ravens left their fledgings to survive by 

 chance, not feeding them as other birds did. This is 

 manifested in several places in the Bible, as in the 147th 

 Psalm : "He giveth to the beast his food and to the young 

 ravens which cry"; but this absurd notion is far older, 

 no doubt, than the Psalms. Aristotle 41 mentions that 

 in Scythia — a terra incognita where, in the minds of the 

 Greeks, anything might happen— "there is a kind of bird 

 as big as a bustard, which . . . does not sit upon its 

 eggs, but hides them in the skin of a hare or fox," and 

 then watches them from a neighboring perch. Readers 

 may guess at the reality, if any, behind this. Aristotle 

 seems to have accepted it as a fact, for he goes on to de- 

 scribe how certain birds of prey are equally devoid of 

 parental sense of duty; but we cannot be sure what species 

 are referred to, despite the names used in Cresswell's 

 translation of the History of Animals, as follows: 



The bird called asprey . . . feeds both its young and those 

 of the eagle ... for the eagle turns out its young . . . before 

 the proper time, when they still require feeding and are unable 

 to fly. The eagle appears to eject its young from the nest 

 from envy . . . and strikes them. When they are turned out 

 they begin to scream, and the phene comes and takes them up. 



Why so strange notions of maternal care in birds 

 should ever have gained credence in the face of daily ob- 



