FABLE AND FOLKLORE 233 



of January 30 and 31, and February 1, as "blackbird 

 days," and explained that many years ago the local black- 

 birds were white; but in one hard winter it was so cold 

 these thrushes were compelled to take refuge in chimneys, 

 and ever since have worn a sooty plumage. 



This belief that the sable brotherhood of the crow-tribe 

 was once white seems to be universal, and perhaps arises 

 in the equally general, albeit somewhat childish, feeling 

 that nothing is as it used to be; and coupled with this is 

 the similarly common feeling that every event or con- 

 dition ought to be accounted for. Thus we get a glimpse 

 at the psychology in these primitive stories of the reason 

 why this and that animal is as we see it. Skeat 7 found 

 among the Malays, for example, a legend that in the days 

 of King Solomon the argus pheasant was dowdily 

 dressed, and it besought the crow to paint its plumage in 

 splendid colors. The crow complied and gave the 

 pheasant its present beautifully variegated costume; but 

 when the artist asked for a similar service toward itself 

 from the pheasant the latter not only refused but spilt a 

 bottle of ink over the crow. 



To return to the erratic, and usually mischievous career 

 of Yel, the Northwestern (raven) culture-hero, it is re- 

 membered that often, kindly or unkindly, he changed 

 sundry birds besides owls from something else into their 

 present form. For example, he sent a hawk into the 

 Tlingit country after fire. Previously the hawk's bill 

 had been long, but in bringing the fire this long beak was 

 burned short, and has ever remained so. Nelson 101 

 learned from Alaskan Eskimos why the short-eared owl 

 has so diminutive a beak, nearly hidden in the feathers of 

 the flat face. This owl, it appears, was once a little girl 

 who lived in a village by the lower Yukon. "She was 



