78j BIRDS JIN LEGEND 



mation, to offset in the minds of most of us the tendency 

 to imagine that "over the hills and far away" things 

 somehow are picturesquely different from those in our 

 own humdrum neighborhood, and that perhaps yonder 

 the laws of nature, so inexorable here, may admit now 

 and then of exceptions. Amber came from — well, few 

 persons knew precisely whence; and wasn't it possible 

 that it might be a concretion of birds' tears, as some 

 said? 



Around thee shall glisten the loveliest amber 

 That ever the sorrowing sea-bird hath wept — 



sang an enamored poet. 



Facilis descensus Averni is a Latin phrase in constant 

 use, with the implication that it is difficult to get back — 

 sed revocare gradus, that's the rub ! But how many know 

 that this dark little cliff-ringed lake near Cumae, in Italy, 

 was anciently so named in the belief that because of its 

 noxious vapors no bird could fly across it without being 

 suffocated. Hence a myth placed there an entrance to 

 the nether world, and, with keen business instincts, the 

 Cumaean sybil intensified her reputation as a seer by tak- 

 ing as her residence a grotto near this baleful bit of water. 



Who can forget the monumental mistake of that really 

 great and philosophic naturalist, Buffon, in denying that 

 the voices of American birds were, or could be, melodious. 

 He said of our exquisite songster, the wood-thrush, that 

 it represented the song-thrush of Europe which had at 

 sometime rambled around by the Northern Ocean and 

 made its way into America ; and that it had there, owing 

 to a change of food and climate, so degenerated that its 

 cry was now harsh and unpleasant, "as are the cries of all 

 birds that live in wild countries inhabited by savages." 



