276 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



So the lovers were reunited. Then 



. . . Squ'tes and Mipis 



Lived all the summer upon the mountain, 



Sung in its shadows and shone in the sunshine. 



Still as of yore they are singing and shining; 



And so it will be while the mountain is there. 



A very curious feature of this delicate romance, which 

 reminds one of the love-story of the Nightingale and 

 the Rose, is the transposition of sex. To our minds 

 it would seem natural that the bird, as the most active 

 of the two characters, should take the male part and 

 the leaf the other; and it is false to fact that Red Bird, 

 as a female, should sing. The Indians must have known 

 that this was unnatural, yet their poetic sense arranged 

 it otherwise, just as the poets have pictured the nightin- 

 gale pressing her breast against a thorn, yet singing, 

 as only male birds do ! 



Elsewhere I have shown how important a part the 

 loon plays in the mythology and fireside tales of the 

 redmen of the Northeastern region of our country and 

 that of the Great Lakes. To the Algonkins of Maine 

 and eastward this bird was the messenger of their great 

 hero Glooscap, or Kuloskap, as Leland spells it with 

 careful accuracy when writing in the language of the 

 Pasamaquoddies ; and he has told in verse the story of 

 how this service was accepted by the willing bird. One 

 day when Kuloskap was pursuing the gigantic magi- 

 cian, Winpe, his enemy, a flock of loons came circling 

 near him, and to his question to their leader: "What is 

 thy will, O Kwimu?" the loon replied: "I fain would be 

 thy servant, thy servant and thy friend." Then the 

 Master taught the loons a cry, a strange, prolonged cry, 

 like the howl of a dog when he calls to the moon, or 



