Ii8 Wild Bird Guests 



weird calls; and by their seemingly mysterious 

 gatherings and disappearances and reappear- 

 ances. It is hardly strange that these wonderful 

 creatures, so different from all other forms of life, 

 yet so human in many of their attributes, which 

 had mastered the air and which came and went 

 at will through paths where none could follow, 

 should exert a powerful influence on the minds 

 of peoples seeking to solve, without the aid of 

 science, the mysteries of nature. So birds came 

 to be invested with supernatural powers, some 

 for good and some for evil; they became the 

 subjects of story and legend and in this way 

 interwoven with ancient folklore and symbol- 

 ism. In Percy Mackaye's famous bird masque. 

 Sanctuary, Ornis, the Spirit of All Birds, in her 

 appeal to Stark, the Plume-hunter, says: 



"Do you not know me ? I am she 

 Whom first beneath the dark ancestral tree, 

 You rose upon your feet to hearken to. 

 By me you grew 



To song and freedom. Round your olden feasts 

 You watched my circling flights, whereby your 



priests 

 Proclaimed their omens and their oracles; 

 My cranes announced your victories, my storks 

 Fed your hearth fires, my silver-throated gulls 

 And golden hawks 

 Saved many your sea towns from sore pestilence; 



