FABLE AND FOLKLORE 241 



top of his head," but lost it in a quarrel with a dog. "Sense 

 dat day Buzzard don't never miss fust pickin' out de eye of 

 ev'thing that he gwine eat," so that it cannot see to resist if it 

 is not quite dead. 



Darkies say that the hummingbird lost her voice — "she choke 

 her voice clean out of her wid honey" — through being so greedy 

 when she first discovered the honey in flowers, by reason of 

 contracting a "swimmin' in de head" by incessant whirling, as 

 her poising on wings seems to the negroes. "She hav a notion 

 now that she los' her voice . . . deep in some flower. She's 

 al'a'rs lookin' fer dat los' voice. Flash in dis flower ! Dash in 

 dat flower ! But she'll nuvver, nuvver fin' it." 



Charles G. Leland quotes in his Etruscan Roman 

 Remains 97 a note given him by Miss Mary Owen, of 

 St. Joseph, Missouri, that the negroes and half-breeds in 

 southern Missouri consider the redheaded woodpecker 

 a great sorcerer, who can appear as either a bird or as 

 a redman with a mantle or cloak on his arm. He is sup- 

 posed to be very grateful or very vengeful as his mood 

 requires. He sometimes bores holes in the heads of his 

 enemies, while they sleep, and puts in maggots which keep 

 the victims forever restless and crazy. He made the 

 bat by putting a rat and a bird together. 



