BIRDS IN THE CALENDAR 
as a wise bird, or was the fashion of depicting 
it in the following of Minerva merely dictated 
by the presence of these birds on the Akro- 
polis ? It seems hardly conceivable that they 
could so have blundered as to call the owls 
that we know clever birds ; and the alter- 
native assumption that owlish intellect can 
have appreciably changed in the interval is 
even less acceptable. It is probable that too 
much significance need not be attached to 
such association between the Greek goddess 
of wisdom and her attendant owls, for Hindu 
symbolism represented Ganesa, god of wis- 
dom, with the head of an elephant, yet that 
animal, which the natives of India know 
better than the men of any other race, has 
never figured in their folklore as a type noted 
for its cunning. About the owl as we know 
it to-day, with its spectacled face and blink- 
ing eyes, there is nothing strikingly intelligent, 
and schoolboy slang, in which the word does 
duty as synonymous with foolishness, dis- 
covers a more accurate appreciation of these 
birds. 
Seen at its worst, when surprised in the 
glare of daylight and mobbed by a furious 
116 
