FABLE AND FOLKLORE 239 



fisher's head, intending to twist it off — a very character- 

 istic dodge of these treacherous old culture-heroes — but 

 only rumpled the bird's crest, so that it has been a ragged 

 sort of headdress ever since. 



The extinct Chitimacha Indians of northern Louisiana 

 had a tale that a man set the marshes on fire, and a little 

 bird uprose through the smoke and remonstrated. The 

 man was angry and threw a shell at the bird, which 

 wounded its wings and made them bleed, and thus the 

 red-winged blackbird got its scarlet shoulders. 



A familiar and active little shrike of the northern 

 border of South America is the kiskadee, with a con- 

 spicuous white mark on its head. The Arawaks say that 

 this radiant little songster, which has the same sort of 

 fierce hostility to hawks and other large birds as dis- 

 tinguishes our doughty kingbird, got tired of a war that 

 was going on among the animals, put a white bandage 

 around its head and pretended to be sick. The war 

 halted long enough to expose the fraud of the little mal- 

 ingerer, and kiskadees were sentenced to wear the white 

 bandage perpetually. 



Arawak story-tellers also relate that the trumpeter 

 (Psophia) and a kingfisher quarrelled over the spoils of 

 war, and knocked each other into the ashes, which ac- 

 counts for the gray of their plumage. The nakedness of 

 the trumpeter's legs is owing to his stepping into an 

 ant's nest, and getting them picked clean. The owl dis- 

 covered a package among the spoil of the war that con- 

 tained only darkness, since which that bird cannot endure 

 daylight. It is interesting to compare with this the ad- 

 venture of the trumpeter current among the Maquiritares, 

 which is related elsewhere. 



So the stories go on. The Pimas, for example, believe 



