FABLE AND FOLKLORE 215 



nificance of the supposed message, as has been extensively 

 explained in an earlier chapter of this book. 



This science or business of bird-divination, for it was 

 both, was of prehistoric antiquity. Plutarch 94 records 

 that Romulus and Remus, the fabled founders of the 

 Latin race began their eventful life under a wild fig-tree, 

 where a she-wolf nursed them, and a woodpecker con- 

 stantly fed and watched over them. 'These creatures, ,, 

 Plutarch remarks, "are esteemed holy to the god Mars — 

 the woodpecker the Latins still especially worship and 

 honor. Romulus became skilled in divination, and first 

 carried the lituits, or diviner's staff, a crooked rod with 

 which soothsayers indicated the quarters of the heavens 

 when observing the flight of birds." 



Among the Romans not a bird 

 Without a prophecy was heard. 

 Fortunes of empire often hung 

 On the magician magpie's tongue, 

 And every crow was to the state 

 A sure interpreter of fate. — Churchill. 



The peculiar province of the auspices, or bird-in- 

 specters, was to seek the will of the gods as to some con- 

 templated act or policy by watching the behavior of 

 the sacred chickens, cared for by an official called 

 pullarius. "If the chickens came too slowly out of the 

 cage, or would not feed, it was a bad omen; but if they 

 fed greedily, so that some part of their food fell and 

 struck the ground, it was deemed an excellent omen." — 

 and so forth and so forth. 



It is rather engaging to inquire why the humble barn- 

 yard fowl was used for so momentous a function. 

 Partly, no doubt, because it was the most convenient kind 

 of bird to keep and propagate in captivity, and therefore 



