Birds in Legend, Fable and Folklore

In this work Mr. Ernest Ingersoll leads us along an attractive byway of ornithology. One chapter deals with birds as national emblems, and traces the symbolic eagle, not omitting dicephalous varieties, from 4000 B.C. on the shores of the Persian Gulf to the bald-headed species honoured to-day in the United States. Others deal, for example, with Noah's messengers and parallel legends, with the folklore of bird migration, with birds in Christian tradition, with birds in ancient augury and modern popular weather-lore, and with birds of ill omen at all times and in many lands. Historical legends also have a place, from the Capitoline geese to the feathered disciples of St. Francis of Assisi which form the subject of the frontispiece. Purely fabulous species, such as the phcenix and the rukh, are likewise dealt with.