FABLE AND FOLKLORE 217 



which cooks figured among the Romans, came originally 

 from Babylonia ... I think that the figure [in a seal] of 

 a cock perched on an altar before a priest making his of- 

 ferings . . . represents the bird in this capacity as a sooth- 

 sayer." In fact, a whole department of the science of 

 augury was known as alectromancy, in which a barnyard 

 cock was the agent or medium of inspiration. 



These practices — which were entirely void of morality 

 — are a curious index of the mental barbarism of the early 

 Greeks and Romans, for they are quite on a level with 

 the ideas and doings of savages now. 



With the advance in knowledge and enlightenment cul- 

 minating in the philosophy of Cicero and his skeptical 

 contemporaries, both faith and practice in this childish 

 consultation of chickens and crows disappeared, or de- 

 scended to be merely a political sop for the credulous 

 populace. Even this passed away when superstitious 

 paganism faded out of the religion of mankind in Europe, 

 or, more exactly, it became changed into a faith in weather 

 prophecy by noticing the behavior of birds and other 

 animals ; but these prognostications are based not on a sup- 

 posed message from the gods but on deductions from ob- 

 servation and experience. Let us see how far this 

 modern method of augury is of service as a sort of home- 

 made Weather Bureau — we will, as it were, study the 

 genesis of the Rain-bird. It began early. Aristophanes 

 tells us, of the Greeks: 



From birds in sailing men instruction take 

 Now lie in port, now sail, and profit make. 



The proprietor of Gardiner's Island, at the eastern end 

 of Long Island, New York, where fish-hawks then 

 abounded, and always since have been under protection, 



