CHAPTER II. 

 THE BIRDS. 



BIRDS have been associated with man from time imme- 

 morial, and have been chosen as a favourite theme of song 

 by the poets of all ages and of every country. Alike in 

 Pagan as in Christian times, whenever the virtues or the 

 vices, the loves or the hatreds, the victories or the defeats, 

 of men have been sung, the birds rarely fail to be alluded 

 to either directly, or in simile, or metaphor. 



Birds in ancient times, either by their flight or their 

 sudden appearance, often decided the destinies of nations, 

 the march of armies, the fall of cities, or the reigns of 

 sovereigns. The flight of birds was anxiously regarded 

 by the augurs, and interpreted by them as indication of 

 success or defeat, of peace or of war. The cackling of 

 geese saved Rome, and caused these birds, so despised in 

 our days, to be held in veneration and esteem. 



Birds held a prominent place in mythological history. 

 The eagle was the bird of Jove ; Juno had her peacocks, 

 Minerva her owl, Venus her doves and sparrows. Fables 

 of men and women transformed into birds and animals 

 abound in the poetry of the ancients, and Ovid in his 

 " Metamorphoses " only repeats and enlarges on the all- 

 prevailing superstition of those early times. 



The legends of the transformation of Philomela into a 

 nightingale, Procne into a swallow, Tereus into a lapwing, 

 Antigone into a stork, Alcyone into a kingfisher, Cygnus 

 into a swan, only prove how largely the feathered races 

 entered into the imaginations of the poets of those days. 



In later times birds still held their place in poetical 

 literature. Heroes are likened to the eagle and falcon, 



