3t4 ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLA Y 



seem to have been transformed into mere fixed 

 symbols appropriated to different holy persons. 

 While the belief in the Sibylline books was re- 

 produced by the Christian practice of using the 

 works of Virgil for divination, almost every trace 

 of belief in the omens given by birds seems to 

 have been lost, with a single exception. The monks 

 invented one prophetic bird the caladrus, which was 

 said only to appear before the death of Kings. 

 In modern English superstition there are only two 

 living survivals of the ancient belief. One, that the 

 sight of a single magpie is a certain forerunner of 

 misfortune, the other, that a bird entering a church 

 or a house is an omen of death. Both are instances 

 of primitive bird augury, from the appearance of 

 a solitary individual ; for the rhymes which go on 

 to make further divination from different numbers 

 of magpies seen are clearly a ' gloss,' invented by 

 the ingenious and not the ingenuous mind. 



