FABLE AND FOLKLORE 83 



Modern ornithologists scout the notion. Thus Alfred 

 Newton 55 refers to it in a scornful way, but admits that 

 it is the conviction not only of Egyptian peasants but of 

 Siberian Tartars, who assured the ornithologist Gmelin, 

 in 1740, that in autumn storks and cranes carried south- 

 ward on their backs all the Siberian corncrakes. In a 

 Gaelic folk-tale of Cathal O'Couchan a falcon, knowing 

 that the wren of the story has a long way to go, says: 

 "Spring up between my wings, and no other bird will 

 touch thee till thou reach home." 



In fact, this popular notion is almost world-wide, 

 and it is useful to assemble such evidence as may be 

 had as to the basis of it, for one cannot well dismiss with a 

 gesture of disdain a theory that appears to have arisen in- 

 dependently, and from observation, among peoples so 

 widely separated as those of Siberia and Egypt, of Crete 

 and the Hudson Bay country ; and which continues to be 

 held by competent observers. A German man of letters, 

 Adolph Ebeling, who published a book of his experiences 

 in Egypt in 1878, was surprised to find the wagtail there 

 at that season. This is a small, ground-keeping bird that 

 flits about rather than flies; and he expressed to an old 

 Arab his astonishment that such birds should be able to 

 get across the Mediterranean. "The Bedouin," Ebeling 

 relates, "turned to me with a mixture of French and 

 Arabic as follows: 'Do you not know, noble sir, that these 

 small birds are borne over the sea by the larger ones ?' " 

 I laughed, but the old man continued quite naturally: 

 "Every child among us knows that. Those little birds 

 are much too weak to make the long sea-journey with 

 their own strength. This they know very well, and there- 

 fore wait for the storks and cranes and other large birds, 

 and settle themselves upon their backs. In this w r ay they 



