SUPERSTITIONS 167 



expressing their belief in " dowsing," and that is evidently 

 the belief of the editor or proprietor, or both. 



I must look up my Olaus Magnus ; I think he gives 

 a woodcut with an amusing scene of Swallows being 

 taken out of a fishing net, and it might be worth while 

 for you to have this copied and inserted in your book.* 



Of the same kind is the equally ancient belief that 

 little birds get themselves conveyed from one country 

 to another by their bigger brethren. Storks and Cranes 

 on their migration are manifest to beholders, but the 

 transit of lesser birds of feebler flight is seldom evident, 

 and when, as often happens, large and small birds dis- 

 appear or arrive simultaneously, what is more natural 

 than that the ignorant should suppose that the latter 

 should avail themselves of the former as a vehicle ? 

 Thus in 1740 the Tartars of Krasnojarsk assured 

 J. G. Gmelin (Reise durch Siberien) that when autumn 

 came each Crane took a Corncrake on its back and 

 transplanted it to a warm land, while the well-known 

 belief of the Egyptian peasant that Cranes and 

 Storks bring a living load was not long since gravely 

 promulgated in this country as a truth, f 



One would like to know what measure of scorn he 

 would have poured on the theory recently, and (it is 

 said) seriously suggested, that the Cuckow lays her eggs 

 in the nests of other birds in return for her services as 

 guide from southern lands ! 



In the much discussed question of migration routes 

 he took the deepest interest, and he had the highest 

 opinion of the work of Professor Palmen ; but later it 

 appeared that his belief in routes was shaken, and he 

 returned to the more tenable creed that every species 

 on migration goes its own way, and what is called a 

 migration route is only the coincidence of the way taken 

 by more or few of them. 



* Letter to W. Eagle Clarke, January 11, 1905, 

 f " Dictionary of Birds," p. 550. 



