BIRDS IN LEGEND 



way under its wing, had been carried aloft by the kingly 

 candidate. This trickiness angered the eagle so much, 

 says one tradition, that he struck the wren with his wing, 

 which, since then, has been able to fly no higher than a 

 hawthorn-bush. In a German version a stork, not an 

 eagle, carries the wren aloft concealed under its wing. 



W. H. Hudson, the authority on Argentine zoology, 

 says that the boat-tailed grakle, or "chopi," pursues all 

 sorts of predatory birds, even the great caracara eagle, 

 "pouncing down and fastening itself on the victim's 

 back, where it holds its place till the obnoxious bird has 

 left its territory." Sir Samuel Baker encountered in 

 Abyssinia bands of cranes walking about in search of 

 grasshoppers, every crane carrying on its back one or 

 more small flycatchers that from time to time would 

 fly down, seize an insect in the grass, and then return to 

 a crane's shoulders. Precisely the same thing has been 

 recorded of bustards and starlings in South Africa. 



Bird-students are well aware that certain ducks that 

 nest in trees, and such marine birds as guillemots breed- 

 ing on sea-fronting cliffs, sometimes carry down their 

 young from these lofty birth-places by balancing them on 

 their backs ; also that it is a common thing to see water- 

 fowls, especially grebes and swans, swimming about with 

 a lot of little ones on deck, that is, on the broad maternal 

 back. 



These facts prepare us somewhat for examining the 

 widely credited assertion that various large birds of 

 powerful flight transport small birds on their semiannual 

 migrations — a speculation accepted since classic times, or 

 before them. In Deuteronomy, xxxii, II, we read: 

 "As the eagle fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad 

 her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings," etc. 



