DREAMS AND ILLUSIONS. 309 



of the forest, repeat the mysteries of mother earth, and 

 sometimes become interpreters and prophets to man. 

 Birds, by their power of moving through the air 

 as lords of the aerial space, by their arts of building, 

 by the beauty of their plumage, their secret haunts in 

 the forests and rocks, by their frequent appearance 

 both by day and night, and by the variety of their 

 songs, must necessarily have excited the fetishtic 

 fancy of primitive men. The worship of birds was 

 therefore universal, in connection with that of trees, 

 meteors, and waters. They were supposed to cause 

 storms; and the eagle, the falcon, the magpie, and 

 some other birds brought the celestial fire on the 

 earth. The worship of birds is also common in 

 America, and in Central America the bird voc is the 

 messenger of Hurakau, the god of storms. The magic- 

 doctors of the Cri, of the Arikari, and of the Indians 

 of the Antilles, wore the feathers and images of the 

 owl as an emblem of the divine inspiration by which 

 they were animated. Similar beliefs are com non in 

 Africa and Polynesia.* It is well known that the 

 Egyptians worshipped the ibis, the hawk, and other 

 birds, and that the Greeks worshipped birds and trees 

 at Dodona, in consequence of a celebrated oracle. In 

 Italy the lapwing and the magpie became Pilumnus 

 and Picus, who led the Sabines into Picenus. 

 Divination by eagles and other birds was practised 



* See Girard de Riallo : Mythologie Compare'e. Vol. I. Paris, 1878. 

 A valuable and learned work. 



