88 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



boards of farm-wagons. Little birds, like small boys, 

 have sense enough in their migrations to utilize a conven- 

 ience when it is going their way — in other words a very 

 few lucky ones each year manage to "steal a ride." 



Thus far we have been dealing with a matter pretty 

 close to actual ornithology; but it is only within recent 

 years that study has made clear to us "the way of an eagle 

 in the air," which, as a symbol of the semiannual move- 

 ment of bird-hosts, was such a mystery to our fore- 

 fathers. They imagined many quaint explanations, often 

 no more sensible than the theory of the Ojibway Indians, 

 who say that once bird-folk played ball with the North 

 Wind. The latter won the game, and those kinds of 

 birds who were on his side now stay in the North all 

 winter, while those of the defeated side are obliged to 

 flee southward every autumn, as their ancestors did at 

 the end of the great ball-game. 



Sir Walter Scott recalls in one of his novels the fond 

 conceit of the little nuns in the abbey of Whitby, on the 

 Northumberland coast, that the wee immigrants arriving 

 there after their flight across the North Sea fluttered to 

 earth not in weariness of wings but to do homage to 

 Hilda, their saintly abbess. That was fifteen long cen- 

 turies ago ; but the story is true, for you may still see the 

 ruins, at least, of Hilda's abbey, and still, spring by 

 spring, do tired birds pause beside it as if to pay their de- 

 votions. 



Much less pleasant is the dread inspired in the hearts 

 of those who listen to the Seven Whistlers. Formerly no 

 Leicestershire miner would go down into a pit, after hear- 

 ing them, until a little time had elapsed, taking the sounds 

 as a warning that an accident was impending ; and doubt- 

 less coincident mishaps occurred often enough to confirm 



