August 1947 The Queensland Naturalist 
73 
a Grecian stream where ‘ 1 a lonely swan warbles his death 
chant,” and there are many other examples. The only 
origin I have been able to find for this belief lies in the 
story of Cycnus. Cycnus was a great friend of Phaeton, 
whom all will know as the ambitious God who borrowed 
the fiery chariot for a day with such dire results. Deeply 
afflicted at the death of his friend, Cycnus lamented loud 
end long and in the midst of his grief was metamorphosed 
into a swan. The young of the swan are called cygnets, 
from the Latin word, cycnus, cijc/nus, a swan. 
Magpie lore alone would take some little time to dis- 
cuss. The bird hes not the best reputation in the world. 
In Phil Robinson's book The Poet'* Birds, he tells us that 
the magpie is said to lie under Noah’s curse because when 
the other birds came into the Ark of their own accord, it 
alone gave trouble, and had to be caught, lie adds in his 
own inimitable style, “What- a delightful idea — the whole 
of Noah’s Ark waiting to start, till Japhet caught the 
magpie.” 
There are many doggerells dealing with the prophetic 
appearance of magpies: “One for anger, two for mirth, 
three for a, wedding, four for a birth, five for a fiddle, six 
for a dance, seven for England, eight for France.’ In 
another form one is unlucky, but the approaching disaster 
is popularly supposed to be averted by turning thrice 
round — it would be a pity to say three times. In 1801. in 
Leyden’s Glossary 1o l he Coinplaynl of Scotland, we read 
that “many an old woman would more willingly see the 
Devil who bodes no more ill-luck than he brings, than a 
magpie perching on a neighbouring tree'" — which, if it be 
true, is convincing proof of their belief in the pye’s pro- 
phetic powers. 
The crow is no more fortunate and somehow has ended 
up with every man's hand against him. Once as beautiful 
as the mythical Phoenix, for its sins, the crow's plumage 
was scorched to the cinder it is. The most ancient Cinga- 
lese writings tell of the Original Sin of the Crow. “In 
wrath for their tale-bearing — for had they not carried 
abroad the secrets of the councils of the gods? — Indra 
hurled them down through all the hundred storeys of his 
heaven.” and more incriminating still we are told “that 
nothing can improve a crow.” In Thibet there is an evil 
city of crows, in Norway a. “Hill of Bad Spirits,” where 
the souls of wicked men fly about in the likeness of crows, 
