THE FOLKLORE OF BIRD MIGRATION
I was sitting on a hillside in the Catskill Mountains a few years ago in
June, when a hawk came sailing over the field below me. Instantly a
kingbird sprang from the edge of the woods and rushed, in the cavalier
manner of that flycatcher, to drive the hawk away, presumably from its
nesting neighborhood. The hawk tried to avoid the pecking and
wing-beating of its furious little foe, but the tormenter kept at it;
and before long I saw the kingbird deliberately leap upward and alight
on the hawk’s broad back, where it rode comfortably until both birds
were out of sight. I have seen a hummingbird indulge in the same piece
of impudence.
The Arawak Indians of Venezuela relate that their ancestors obtained
their first tobacco-plants from Trinidad by sending a hummingbird,
mounted on a crane, to snatch and bring back the jealously guarded
seeds. The association of these birds in this way seems significant.
It was doubtless because adventures similar to that of the kingbird were
noticed long ago, that there grew up the very ancient fable that on one
occasion a general assembly of birds resolved to chose for their king
that bird which could mount highest into the air. This the eagle
apparently did, and all were ready to accept his rule when a loud burst
of song was heard, and perched upon the eagle’s back was seen an
exultant wren that, a stowaway under its wing, had been carried aloft by
the kingly candidate. This trickiness angered the eagle so much, says
one tradition, that he struck the wren with his wing, which, since then,
has been able to fly no higher than a hawthorn-bush. In a German version
a stork, not an eagle, carries the wren aloft concealed under its wing.
W. H. Hudson, the authority on Argentine zoology, says that the
boat-tailed grakle, or “chopi,” pursues all sorts of predatory birds,
even the great caracara eagle, “pouncing down and fastening itself on
the victim’s back, where it holds its place till the obnoxious bird has
left its territory.” Sir Samuel Baker encountered in Abyssinia bands of
cranes walking about in search of grasshoppers, every crane carrying on
its back one or more small flycatchers that from time to time would fly
down, seize an insect in the grass, and then return to a crane’s
shoulders. Precisely the same thing has been recorded of bustards and
starlings in South Africa.
Bird-students are well aware that certain ducks that nest in trees, and
such marine birds as guillemots breeding on sea-fronting cliffs,
sometimes carry down their young from these lofty birth-places by
balancing them on their backs; also that it is a common thing to see
water-fowls, especially grebes and swans, swimming about with a lot of
little ones on deck, that is, on the broad maternal back.
These facts prepare us somewhat for examining the widely credited
assertion that various large birds of powerful flight transport small
birds on their semiannual migrations—a speculation accepted since
classic times, or before them. In _Deuteronomy_, xxxii, II, we read: “As
the eagle fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh
them, beareth them on her wings,” etc. Modern ornithologists scout the
notion. Thus Alfred Newton[55] refers to it in a scornful way, but
admits that it is the conviction not only of Egyptian peasants but of
Siberian Tartars, who assured the ornithologist Gmelin, in 1740, that in
autumn storks and cranes carried southward on their backs all the
Siberian corncrakes. In a Gaelic folk-tale of Cathal O’Couchan a falcon,
knowing that the wren of the story has a long way to go, says: “Spring
up between my wings, and no other bird will touch thee till thou reach
home.”
In fact, this popular notion is almost world-wide, and it is useful to
assemble such evidence as may be had as to the basis of it, for one
cannot well dismiss with a gesture of disdain a theory that appears to
have arisen independently, and from observation, among peoples so widely
separated as those of Siberia and Egypt, of Crete and the Hudson Bay
country; and which continues to be held by competent observers. A German
man of letters, Adolph Ebeling, who published a book of his experiences
in Egypt in 1878, was surprised to find the wagtail there at that
season. This is a small, ground-keeping bird that flits about rather
than flies; and he expressed to an old Arab his astonishment that such
birds should be able to get across the Mediterranean. “The Bedouin,”
Ebeling relates, “turned to me with a mixture of French and Arabic as
follows: ‘Do you not know, noble sir, that these small birds are borne
over the sea by the larger ones?’”
I laughed, but the old man continued quite naturally:
“Every child among us knows that. Those little birds are much too weak
to make the long sea-journey with their own strength. This they know
very well, and therefore wait for the storks and cranes and other large
birds, and settle themselves upon their backs. In this way they allow
themselves to be borne over the sea. The large birds submit to it
willingly, for they like their little guests who by their merry
twitterings help to kill the time on the long voyage.”
Ebeling met that evening, he says, in Cairo, the African explorer
Theodor von Heuglin, who, as all know, was a specialist in African
ornithology, related to him the conversation with the Bedouin, and asked
his opinion on it. “Let others laugh,” said von Heuglin. “I do not
laugh, for the thing is known to me. I should have recently made mention
of it in my work if I had had any strong personal proof to justify it.
We must be much more careful in such matters than a mere story-teller or
novelist.”
A Swedish traveller, Hedenborg, is quoted by August Petermann, the
geographer, as stating that in autumn on the Island of Rhodes, in the
Ægean Sea, when the storks came in flocks across the water he often
heard birds singing that he was unable to discover. “Once he followed a
flock of storks, and as they alighted he saw small birds fly up from
their backs.”
There was published in London in 1875 a book entitled _Bible Lands and
Bible Customs_, the author of which was the Rev. Henry J. Van Lennep,
D.D. Dr. Lennep informs his readers that many small birds are unable to
fly across the Mediterranean, “and to meet such cases the crane has been
provided.... In the autumn numerous flocks may be seen coming from the
north ... flying low and circling over the plains. Little birds of
various species may then be seen flying up to them, while the twittering
songs of those comfortably settled on their backs may then be distinctly
heard.” (Quoted in _Nature_, March 24, 1881). We may smile at the good
man’s faith that God “provided” big birds as carriers for little
ones—especially as we know that the weakest warblers are able to cross
from Europe to Africa; but other equally modern and more matter-of-fact
testimony comes from the same quarter of the world. In _The Evening
Post_, of New York City, dated November 20, 1880, a long letter appeared
on this topic, written by an anonymous correspondent who gave his own
similar experience in Crete in the autumn of 1878, part of which reads:
“On several occasions the village priest—a friendly Greek with whom
I spent the greater part of my time—directed my attention to the
twittering and singing of small birds which he distinctly heard when
a flock of sand-cranes passed by on their southward journey. I told
my friend that I could not see any small birds, and suggested that
the noise came from the wings of the large ones. This he denied,
saying ‘No, no! I know it is the chirping of small birds. They are
on the backs of the cranes. I have seen them frequently fly up and
alight again, and they are always with them when they stop to rest
and feed.’ I was still sceptical, for with the aid of a field-glass
I failed to discover the ‘small birds’ spoken of. I inquired of
several others and found the existence of these little feathered
companions to be a matter of general belief. ‘They come over from
Europe with them.’ One day, while fishing about fifteen miles from
shore, a flock of cranes passed quite near the yacht. The fishermen,
hearing the ‘small birds,’ drew my attention to their chirping.
Presently one cried out, ‘There’s one!’ but I failed to catch sight
of it, whereupon one of the men discharged his flintlock. Three
small birds rose up from the flock and soon disappeared among the
cranes.”
This letter, despite its column-length and its anonymity, was copied in
full by that highly scientific journal _Nature_, of London, and this
immediately brought out a note from John Rae, one of the wisest
explorers of northwestern Canada, who related (_Nature_, March 3, 1881)
that it was the general belief among the Maskegan (Cree) Indians
dwelling along the southwestern shore of Hudson Bay that “a small bird,
one of the Fringillidae, performs its northward migration in spring on
the back of the Canada goose. These geese reach Hudson Bay about the
last of April, and the Indians state that when they are fired at little
birds are seen flying away from them.” Mr. Rae adds: “An intelligent,
truthful and educated Indian, named George Rivers ... assured me that he
had witnessed this, and I believe I once saw it occur.”
Almost simultaneously _Forest and Stream_ (New York, March 10, 1881)
printed a communication from J. C. Merrill of Fort Custer, Montana,
alleging “a general belief among the Crow Indians of Montana that the
sandhill crane performs the same office for a bird they call
_napite-shu-utl_, or crane’s back.” Mr. Merrill continued:
“This bird I have not seen, but from the description it is probably
a small grebe. It is ‘big medicine’ and when obtained is rudely
stuffed and carefully preserved.... About ten or fifteen per cent of
cranes are accompanied by the ‘crane-back,’ which, as the crane
rises from the ground, flutters up and settles on the back between
the wings, remaining there until the crane alights. Such is the
Indian account, and many of their hunters and chiefs have assured me
that they have frequently seen the birds carried off in this way. At
these times the bird is said to keep up a constant chattering
whistle, which is the origin of the custom of the Crow warriors
going out to battle, each with a small bone whistle in his mouth;
this is continually blown, imitating the notes of the
‘crane’s-back,’ and, as they believe, preserves their ponies and
themselves from wounds, so that in case of defeat they may be safely
carried away as is the napite-shu-utl.
“The Cree Indians are said to observe the same habit in the white
crane.”
Now there is no good reason to deny the honesty or sneer at the value of
these widely distributed observations so long as they are regarded as
descriptive of exceptions and not of a rule of migration. Neither the
observers nor the reporters had any motive for deception, and are not
likely to deceive themselves in every case—moreover, new witnesses
continually arise. For example: Mr. E. Hagland, of Therien, Alberta,
wrote to me as follows in a casual way, without any prompting, in April,
1919:
“One fall a flock of cranes passed over me flying very low, and
apart from their squawking I could distinctly hear the twittering of
small birds, sparrows of some kind. The chirping grew louder as the
cranes drew towards me, and grew fainter as they drew away; and as
the cranes were the only birds in sight I concluded that little
birds were taking a free ride to the south.”
The manner of flight of sandhill cranes as described by Dr. Elliott
Coues[50] suggests why they might well be utilized as common carriers by
small birds going their way. “Such ponderous bodies, moving with slowly
beating wings, give a great idea of momentum from mere weight ... for
they plod along heavily, seeming to need every inch of their ample wings
to sustain themselves.” This would make it easy and tempting for a tired
little migrant to rest its feet on the crane’s broad back—and once
settled there, why not stay?
The flaw in this whole matter is the unwarranted inference made by the
Bedouins who talked with Herr Ebling, and by wiser persons, namely, that
_all_ the wagtails and other little birds annually perform their
overseas journeys by aid of stronger-winged friends. That is reasoning
from some to all, which is bad logic. It is as if a stranger in town
noticed a few schoolboys hopping on the back of a wagon, and immediately
noted down that in Pequaket boys in general rode to school on the
tailboards of farm-wagons. Little birds, like small boys, have sense
enough in their migrations to utilize a convenience when it is going
their way—in other words a very few lucky ones each year manage to
“steal a ride.”
Thus far we have been dealing with a matter pretty close to actual
ornithology; but it is only within recent years that study has made
clear to us “the way of an eagle in the air,” which, as a symbol of the
semiannual movement of bird-hosts, was such a mystery to our
forefathers. They imagined many quaint explanations, often no more
sensible than the theory of the Ojibway Indians, who say that once
bird-folk played ball with the North Wind. The latter won the game, and
those kinds of birds who were on his side now stay in the North all
winter, while those of the defeated side are obliged to flee southward
every autumn, as their ancestors did at the end of the great ball-game.
Sir Walter Scott recalls in one of his novels the fond conceit of the
little nuns in the abbey of Whitby, on the Northumberland coast, that
the wee immigrants arriving there after their flight across the North
Sea fluttered to earth not in weariness of wings but to do homage to
Hilda, their saintly abbess. That was fifteen long centuries ago; but
the story is true, for you may still see the ruins, at least, of Hilda’s
abbey, and still, spring by spring, do tired birds pause beside it as if
to pay their devotions.
Much less pleasant is the dread inspired in the hearts of those who
listen to the Seven Whistlers. Formerly no Leicestershire miner would go
down into a pit, after hearing them, until a little time had elapsed,
taking the sounds as a warning that an accident was impending; and
doubtless coincident mishaps occurred often enough to confirm faith in
the presentiment. Level-headed men knew well enough what the Seven
Whistlers were—“it’s them long-billed curlews, but I never likes to hear
’em,” said one. The northern name of these birds is “whimbrel,” a form
of the English _whimperer_. As these curlews when migrating often travel
low on dark nights, and are unseen, it is not strange that their
unearthly cries should chill the imagination of the superstitious, and
that the Scotch should call them “corpse-hounds.” “Gabble retchet” is
another Scotch term; and probably the Irish banshee had a similar
origin. Still another name is “Gabriel hounds,” originating, it is
thought in Scandinavia, and explained by the fact that there the calling
to one another of bean-geese in their nocturnal journeys, in spring,
have a singular resemblance to the yelping of beagles; and the story is
that Gabriel is obliged to follow his spectral pack, said to be
human-headed, high in the dark air, as a punishment for having once
hunted on Sunday.
Wordsworth in one of his sonnets connects this belief with the German
legend of the Wild Huntsman, “doomed the flying hart to chase forever on
aërial grounds.” A Lancashire explanation, quoted by Moncure D. Conway
is that these migrants, there deemed to be plovers, were “Wandering
Jews,” so called because they contained the souls of Jews who assisted
at the Crucifixion, and in consequence were condemned to float in the
air forever. A curious coincidence, given by Skeat,[7] is that the
Malays have an elaborate story of a spectral huntsman, and hear him in
the nocturnal notes of the birikbirik, a nightjar.
It is hardly more than a century ago that intelligent men abandoned the
belief that certain birds hibernated in hollow trees, caverns, or even
buried themselves every autumn in the mud at the bottom of ponds, and
then recovered in the spring. This theory is of great antiquity, and was
applied especially to the swallows, swifts, nightingales and corncrakes
of the Mediterranean region; but even Aristotle doubted whether it was
true of all birds. He discusses at some length in his _Natural
History_[41] the winter retreat of fishes and other creatures that
hibernate, and continues:
“Many kinds of birds also conceal themselves, and they do not all,
as some suppose, migrate to warmer climes ... and many swallows have
been seen in hollow places almost stripped of feathers; and kites,
when they first showed themselves, have come from similar
situations.... Some of the doves conceal themselves; others do not,
but migrate along with the swallows. The thrush and the starling
also conceal themselves.”
I have an unverified memorandum from the pen of Antonio Galvano, who
resided in Mexico, long ago, that in his time hummingbirds “live of the
dew, and the juyce of flowers and roses. They die or sleepe every yeere
in the moneth of October, sitting upon a little bough in a warme and
close place: they revive or wake againe in the moneth of April after
that the flowers be sprung, and therefore they call them the revived
birds.”
Even Gilbert White,[45] was inclined to think hibernation might be true,
at least of British swallows; and Cowper sings—
The swallows in their torpid state
Compose their useless wings.
Alexander Wilson[46] thought it necessary to combat vigorously the same
fiction then persistent among Pennsylvania farmers, and did so at length
in his _American Ornithology_ published in 1808.
But the wildest hypothesis was the one prevalent in the Middle Ages and
alluded to by Dryden in his poem _The Hind and The Panther_, speaking of
young swallows in autumn:
They try their fluttering wings and trust themselves in air,
But whether upward to the moon they go,
Or dream the winter out in caves below,
Or hawk for flies elsewhere, concerns us not to know.
Southwards, you may be sure, they bent their flight,
And harbored in a hollow rock by night.
Or as Gay’s shepherd surmises:[8]
He sung where woodcocks in the summer feed,
And in what climates they renew their breed;
Some think to northern coasts their flight tend,
Or to the moon in midnight hours ascend:
When swallows in the winter season keep,
And how the drowsy bat and dormouse sleep.
A quaint theological justification of this theory that birds fly to the
moon as a winter-resort is to be found in Volume VI of _The Harleian
Miscellany_. It is entitled “An Inquiry into the Physical and Literal
Sense of the Scriptures,” and is an exegesis of Jeremiah viii, 7: “The
stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed time, and the turtle and the
crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming.” The reverend
commentator, whose name is lost, begins at once to explain migration
among birds. He first assures his readers that many birds, including
storks, often fly on migration at a height that renders them
indiscernible. Now, he argues, if the flight of storks had been in a
horizontal direction flocks of birds would have been seen frequently by
travellers—ignoring the fact that they are and always have been
observed. But, he goes on, as the flight is not horizontal it must be
perpendicular to the surface of the earth, and, therefore, it becomes
clear that the moon would be the first resting-place the birds would be
likely to strike, whereupon he draws this conclusion: “Therefore the
stork, and the same may be said of other season-observing birds, till
some place more fit can be assigned to them, does go unto, and remain in
some one of the celestial bodies; and that must be the moon, which is
most likely because nearest, and bearing most relation to this our
earth, as appears in the Copernican scheme; yet is the distance great
enough to denominate the passage thither an itineration or journey.”
The author next clinches the matter by taking the time that the stork is
absent from its nesting-place, and showing how it is utilized. Two
months are occupied in the upward flight, three for rest and
refreshment, and two more for the return passage. Thus this ingenious
writer lays what he considers a solid scientific foundation beneath an
ancient and vague theory.
The sudden vanishing of some migratory birds while others resembling
them remained in view gave to ancient ignorance—not yet altogether
dissipated, even in these United States—the belief that a bird might
change into the form of another. The difference noticed in plumage in
some species in summer and winter was accounted for in the same way, as
many old Greek myths illustrate. Thus Sophocles, trying in one of his
dramas to explain an inconsistency between two versions of the myth of
Tereus, declares that the hoopoe of the older story is the hawk of the
newer one—the birds were altered, not the narrative. He was easily
believed, for to the Greeks of his day it appeared plain that birds
might become transformed into others birds. Aristotle took great pains
to show the absurdity of this notion, yet it has held on. Swann tells of
an Englishman who declared that it was well-known that sparrow-hawks
changed into cuckoos in spring; and another old belief is that the
European land-rail becomes in winter the water-rail, resuming its own
form in spring. A French name for the land-rail, by the way, is “king of
the quails,” because the quails chose it as leader in their migrations.
One of the most picturesque incidents in the story of the
wilderness-roving of the Children of Israel, who were “murmuring” for
the fleshpots of Egypt, is the sudden coming of quails that “filled the
camp.” The interpretation is plain that a migratory host of these birds
had settled for the night where the Hebrews, or some of them, were; and
the notable point is their abundance, and that they had disappeared when
morning came, which is characteristic. These quails visit Europe in
summer in prodigious numbers from south of the Mediterranean, and are
netted for market by tens of thousands. It is said that in old times the
bishops of Capri—Italy receives the greatest flight—derived a large part
of their wealth from a tax on the catching of quails. Pliny alleges, as
an example of the immense migrations of these quails in his time, that
often, always at night, they settled on the sails of ships and so sank
them. This really seems possible when one thinks of the small size of
the “ships” of that period, and recalls that flights of our own
migrating pigeons (now extinct) used to smash down stout branches of
trees by the weight of the crowds of birds that settled on them.
Cranes are birds of striking characteristics, as we have seen, and seem
to have impressed very forcibly the ancient Greeks as well as recent
Orientals, the latter finding in them an extraordinary symbolism. The
Greeks believed that during their winter absence the cranes were in
constant battle with the Pygmies—“That small infantry warred on by
cranes,” as Milton characterized those diminutive, but pugnacious folks
who lived no one knew exactly where, but certainly at the ends of the
earth. “The cranes travel,” Aristotle records, “from Scythia to the
marshes in the higher parts of Egypt from which the Nile originates.
This is the place where the Pygmies dwell; and this is no fable, for
there is really, it is said, a race of dwarfs, both men and horses,
which lead the life of troglodytes.”
When the shrill clouds of Cranes do give alarmes,
The valiant _Pigmy_ stands unto his armes:
Straight, too weak for the _Thracian_ bird, he’s swept,
And through the eye in crooked tallons rapt.[48]
But this is only one item in the crane’s list of wonders. When this bird
migrates it always flies against the wind, according to ancient
bird-minders, and carries a swallowed stone as ballast so that it may
not be swept out of its course by a change of wind; and this stone when
it is vomited up is useful as a touchstone for gold. Aristotle had heard
of this ballasting precaution, and expressly denies it, but he says
nothing about other stones associated with the history of the bird,
perhaps because they had not been discovered in his day. The sagacious
cranes were also said to post sentinels, while halting at night, and to
insure their necessary vigilance these sentinels were required to stand
on one foot, and to hold in the other, uplifted one a large stone.
Should one of these sentinel-birds drowse the stone would drop and by
its noise awaken the sleepy sentry. This explains the fact that in
British heraldry the crane is always represented with a bit of rock in
its fist, the pose signifying “vigilance.”
Lyly,[49] in that queer old book _Euphues_, confesses: “What I have done
was only to keep myselfe from sleepe, as the Crane doth the Stone in her
foote; and I would also, with the same Crane, that I had been silent,
holding a Stone in my mouth.” His 16th-century readers understood this
second simile, for they remembered that cranes were said to be thus
gagged when migrating, so as not to utter any cries that would bring
eagles or other birds of prey to attack them.
This, perhaps, will be the most appropriate place to mention some other
quaint but widely credited stories of birds possessed of stones,
although they are not usually connected with migratory habits.
The people of Rome in the old days were told of a crystalline stone
called _alectorius_, as large as a bean, to be found in the gizzard of
the barnyard cock. It was held to have wonderful properties, endowing
its possessor with strength, courage, and success with women and money,
and to this apparently complete list of virtues is added by one
historian the quality of invisibility. This last virtue also pertained
to the stone placed by the raven in the throat of its fledgling, but the
formalities described as necessary for anyone who sought to obtain it
were quite impossible to fulfil. “It may, indeed,” as Hulme[38] remarks,
“have had the same effect on the original owner, as there could scarcely
be an authentic instance of such peculiar property being found.” On the
other hand we are told that a stone from the hoopoe, when laid upon the
breast of a sleeping man, forced him to reveal any rogueries he might
have committed.
It is stated in Cassell’s _Natural History_ (Vol. IV), that in India
exists a popular superstition that if you will split the head of an
adjutant stork before death you may extract from the skull “the
celebrated stone called _zahir mora_, or ‘poison-killer,’ of great
virtue and repute as an antidote to all kinds of poison.” One would
suppose that all the adjutants in India would long ago have been
exterminated, but in fact this is one of the most numerous of birds
there—the scavenger of every village.
The common swallow was once believed to have two of these miraculous
stones stowed away somewhere in its interior. One was red, and cured an
invalid instantly: the other, a black one, brought good fortune. Also,
it was reported, swallows found on a seabeach, by some sort of
inspiration, a particular kind of stone which would restore sight to the
blind; and it was to this legend that Longfellow alluded in
_Evangeline_—
Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone which the swallow
Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight of her fledglings.
Various birds also gave, or strengthened, sight to their young by means
of certain plants mentioned by old herbalists. Finally, it should not be
overlooked that on page 152 of the most recent edition of Cruden’s
celebrated _Concordance_[51] to the Bible, among the generally
astonishing notes beneath the word “eagle” is printed the following: “It
is said that it preserves its nest from poison, by having therein a
precious stone, named Aetites (without which it is thought the eagle
cannot lay her eggs, and which some use to prevent abortion and help
delivery in women, by tying it above or below the navel) and keepeth it
clean by the frequent use of the herb maiden-hair.”
Now it is all well enough to find this information in the writings of
Pliny senior, who alleges that these “eagle-stones” (in fact natural
hollow nodules of iron-impregnated clay) were transported by nesting
eagles to their domiciles to assist them in ovulation, whence by
analogy—recognizing unwittingly the kinship of men and animals—they
would aid women in travail, and to smile over it with the shrewd editor
of _Vulgar Errors_,[33] but it is odd to find such an absurdity
recommended by a modern clergyman as “profitable” material for sermons.
Let me round out this chapter with that recognition of bird-migration in
the custom among the Vikings of the 8th and 9th centuries of saying as
they embarked upon some raid upon the coasts south of them that they
were “following the swan’s path.”