138 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



memorated in the opera Parsifal. The Venetians still 

 assert that the pigeons so familiar and petted in the piazza 

 of St. Mark fly three times daily around the city in honor 

 of the Trinity. 



A later example: in the first voyage of Hernando 

 Cortez to America water and food were almost exhausted, 

 and everybody in the vessel was discouraged and 

 mutinous, when "came a Dove flying to the Shippe, being 

 Good Friday at Sunsett; and sat him on the Shippe-top; 

 whereat they were all comforted, and tooke it for a 

 miracle and good token . . . and all gave heartie thanks 

 to God, directing their course the way the Dove flew." 

 Any sort of bird would have been welcome as an indica- 

 tion of nearness of land, but a dove meant to them a 

 heavenly pilot. No wonder that they were comforted! 

 And when they had landed they found in abundance a 

 flower (the orchid Peristeria data) which they at once 

 named La Flor del Espiritu Santu — Flower of the Holy 

 Ghost. Why? Because in its center the consolidated 

 pistil and stamens form an unmistakable image of a dove. 



The immediate source of this symbolism is evidently 

 the account in the gospels of the divine sanction witnessed 

 at the baptism of Jesus. Matthew (iii, 16) records : "Lo, 

 the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit 

 of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him" ; 

 and St. Luke strengthens the realism by writing that 

 "the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove." 

 Hence this bird is constantly associated with Christ and 

 with the Cross by artists and decorative designers; and 

 it is no wonder that in so strictly Catholic countries as 

 Italy it is considered sacrilegious by many of the people 

 to eat the flesh of pigeons. 



"In the fifth century," as Mrs. Jenner tells us in her 



