"To-EAT" IN CROW LANGUAGE. 49 



than a hoarse "cuck cuck" I hear somewhere 

 below. Peering over the edge I see on a log 

 above the water, surrounded by a tangle of 

 weeds, a straight slender form with head and 

 neck stretched out, motionless, and gazing up- 

 ward. From it comes the sound and I know it 

 to be a green heron whose silent quest for frog 

 or minnow in the pool below I have interrupted. 

 He was seeking something to eat. He is afraid 

 if he remains I will try to eat him. So with a 

 shriller "ke-uck, ke-uck, ke-uck," he flaps his 

 wings for swift flight to some sheltered cove 

 where he will be in less danger of being eaten. 



The mosquitoes have followed me up and are 

 trying to eat me. Eat, to eat, to be eaten. The 

 world of lower animals lives with the ideas ex- 

 pressed by those three terms always in mind. 

 Nothing is more potent, nothing more impor- 

 tant in their vocabularies. One caw of a crow 

 denotes that he is hungry wants to eat. An- 

 other kind of a caw, that something has been 

 found that is fit to eat. Three caws, shrieked 

 out in quick succession, mean "look out, danger 

 or you will be eaten." So each living thing 

 which can make a sound has its calls, its cries, 

 its signals denoting some one of these three 

 forms of the verb "to eat." 



After a doze on the grass I read this after- 

 noon the Allegory of Jami entitled "Salaman 



4 B28 



