210 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



for a race developed in the valley of the Hoang Ho to be 

 peaceable as for one bred along the Danube or the St. 

 Lawrence to be belligerent. 



In such an unterrifying situation as his the Mongolian 

 felt no impulse to coin the manifestations of nature, 

 elemental or animated, into malignant demons, but rather 

 impersonated them, if at all, as beings with kindly in- 

 tentions and of beautiful form. That such impersona- 

 tions are few, and that Chinese mythology furnishes a 

 comparatively small contribution to the world's store of 

 specimens of that primitive stage in human mentality, is, 

 I think, another evidence of the equable physical en- 

 vironment in which the people of the Flowery Kingdom 

 have been nurtured, which, while it contributed to their 

 sanity, did little to stimulate their imaginations. 



On the other hand, men and women who endured, 

 day by day, the blistering heat and drouth of the desert; 

 or who knew the awe-inspiring mountains, where gloomy 

 glens alternate with cloud-veiled heights, the thunders of 

 unseen avalanches shock the ear, and appalling fires that 

 no man kindles rage against the snows ; or who night and 

 day must guard his or her life in the jungle against lurk- 

 ing perils from tooth and claw and poison-fang — such 

 persons were aroused to mental as well as physical alert- 

 ness for safety's sake, and saw in almost every circum- 

 stance of their lives visions of unearthly power. Unable 

 in their narrow, slowly developing knowledge and meagre 

 intellection, to comprehend much of what confronted 

 them, yet understanding some small sources and agencies 

 of power, what more natural than that they should picture 

 the often tremendous exhibitions of nature's force as the 

 product of enormously greater powers. Hence not only 

 the bigness attributed to the mythical birds we have 



