216 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



would always be at hand when wanted (and in case the 

 prophecy-demand was light an occasional pullet for the 

 official pot would not be missed!), but also because its 

 witlessness made it dependable. A devotee of this way of 

 omen-catching would explain that of course the bird was 

 unconscious of the part it played; that its mind was a 

 mere receptacle of divine impulses to act in a certain way, 

 the significance of which the auspex understood and re- 

 ported. If that theory is true, it follows that the more 

 empty-headed the "medium" is the better, for it would 

 then have fewer ideas of its own to short-circuit the in- 

 spired impulses. This view has, in fact, influenced ignor- 

 ant folks everywhere in their conclusion that men who 

 were witless, or crazy, or had lost their mentality in a 

 trance, were "possessed," mostly by devils but sometimes 

 by good "spirits" which had found a mind "swept and 

 garnished," as St. Luke said, and had become vocal 

 tenants ; whence, it was argued, no human rationality in- 

 terfered with the transmission of the message, and men 

 must accept what the tongues uttered as inspired words. 

 "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings came forth 

 praise" that was praise indeed, because the infants knew 

 not what they said. That was the reason Balaam listened 

 with so much respect to the warning spoken by his ass; 

 and many a preaching ass since has had a similar reward 

 for articulate braying. 



One more consideration suggests itself. The ominous 

 flock kept by the pullarius contained both cocks and hens ; 

 and the cock, as a bird of the sun, has been "sacred" from 

 prehistoric antiquity in that primitive nature-worship 

 from which the Greco-Romans were by no means free. 

 "It is not improbable," we are assured by Houghton 9B 

 "that the sacrificial rites and consultation by augury, in 



