550 REPORT—1899. 
charms and beauty, and made him ready and willing to do whatever she 
bade him. He said he would like to spend the night at her house. To 
this she pretended to assent, and when he was about to lie down, having 
disrobed himself for the night, a disturbance taking place as before in the 
bird-house, she begged him to slip out quickly and set her birds on the 
perch for her, declaring they would give her no peace if they were not 
placed on the perch. Thinking himself a match for the stupidity or per- 
versity of the birds, he made no demur to this, and as he thought he would 
be returning in a moment or so he did not trouble to clothe himself, but 
went just as he stood. He experienced just the same difficulty as his 
comrade had done the previous night. The birds would not stay on the 
perch ; and when he tried to tie them with the thongs he had brought he 
found that the task was not so easy as he had imagined. Again and 
again he thonght he had securely fastened them, but just as he turned to 
leave the birds slipped each time from the perch, and set up such a cackling 
that he was fain to try again. At last he succeeded in getting them to 
remain on the perch, but by this time the morning was breaking, and as 
he entered the hut the sun showed himself on the edge of the horizon, and 
he knew he could safely linger no longer. Moreover, the young woman 
was now cold and distant to him, and repulsed his advances, bidding him 
return to the village before he brought disgrace upon them both. Re- 
solving that on his next visit to her he would not be so easily fooled, he 
caught up his clothes and ran hastily into the village. The talk of the 
young men among themselves soon noised abroad the fact that the stranger 
on the edge of the village possessed a pair of remarkable birds. This 
presently reaching the ears of the father of the bride-elect, he sent a special 
messenger to request the young woman to be present at the feast and ex- 
hibit her odd pets. This was just what she had all along been working for, 
and she readily consented to be present and show her birds. Accordingly 
she came, and stood among those who had some tricks or exhibitions to 
make ; and when they had gone through their parts she came forward and 
placed her two birds on a mat in front of her husband and the chief guests. 
Her husband scarcely noticed her, and certainly no thought of his relation 
to her entered his mind. When she had set the birds down she took from 
a basket at her side some of the roots she had secured from the youths 
and threw them to the birds. The male bird instantly gobbled them all 
up, driving the female away ; at which, to the great astonishment of all, 
the hen bird began to speak in human language and upbraid and reproach 
her greedy spouse for his selfishness and gluttony. Said she, ‘Why won’t 
you let me eat of the roots? I did not treat you like that. Don’t you 
remember how kind I was to you when my father would have killed you 
by letting you walk into the hidden fire ? And this is the return you make 
tome! I did not think you could be so unkind and forgetful.’ Every- 
body wondered what the bird meant by such strange words. When it 
ceased speaking the young Shaman was seen to look perplexed and 
puzzled, as if he were trying to understand something that was not yet 
clear to his mind. The young woman now threw the birds some more 
roots, whereupon the male bird did as before, drove the other away, and 
ate the roots himself. Again the hen bird reproached him, saying, ‘ How 
can you treat me so unkindly? Don’t you remember what I did for you 
when my father changed me and my sister and mother into trout and you 
had to declare which fish was your wife or be thrown to the fierce beast 
and devoured ?’ Her words, however, made no impression upon the cock, 
