fall to eat the pinole themselves, and in the morning the headman decorates himself with owlfeathers, and carries out the shell-money with solemn formality and flings it into the air under the tree where the owl perched."

For the Pimas, Indians of the deserts of the Southwestern States, the owl had a spiritual significance. They believed in days gone by that at death the soul passed into the body of an owl. This owlman association in death was explained by John R. Swanton, who wrote in a report of the Bureau of Ethnology in 1904:

"Should an owl happen to be hooting at the time of a death, it was believed that it was waiting for the soul. . . . Owl feathers were always given to a dying person. They were kept in a long, rectangular box or basket of maguey leaf. If the family had no owl-feathers at hand they sent to the medicine-man who always kept them. If possible, the feathers were taken from a living bird when collected; the owl might then be set free or killed." Listen, my children.

The tale is told, and the telling is to explain, glorify, amuse, justify, instruct, challenge.

All peoples have their folklore, although some may call it something else—history, perhaps, or national heritage, or even science sometimes.

Folklore may be harmless, but it is well, I think, to distinguish between myth and truth. That is not always easy.

Folklore—prejudice—still attaches in places to birds like owls and hawks. The truth is that they, too, have their place in Creation.

From folklore stems our saying. "The goose hangs high." It used to be, "The goose honks high"-a reference to the belief that wild geese fly higher when the weather is fine or promises to be fine.

The truth is that wise management of land and resources is needed to halt the decline of some geese and other birds-to forestall a situation in which nobody will be able to say, "The goose honks high."

-WILL BARKER.

no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put forth his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; and the dove came back to him in the evening, and lo, in her mouth a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Then he waited another seven days, and sent forth the dove; and she did not return to him any more."

Noah was following a custom of navigators from ancient times down to Columbus, who changed courses to follow the flight of birds released to indicate the direction of the nearest land.

Legend has it that the raven was pure white until it failed Noah and was punished by having its feathers turn to black.

The dove, the bird mentioned oftenest in the Bible, symbolized beauty, simplicity, and purity. In the history and religion of many countries, it is a symbol of peace and spirituality. Even before Christ, the homing instinct of a pigeon was recognized. When Ramses III became Pharaoh in the 12th century B.C., the news was carried all over Egypt by pigeon post.

We read also of Abraham. One night he heard a voice: "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." After showing the childless Abraham the stars in the sky as indicative of the number of his descendants, Jehovah told him to prepare a sacrifice of a 3-year-old heifer, a 3-year-old she-goat, a 3-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. For the rest of the day Abraham struggled to keep birds of prey from snatching the sacrifice from the altar (Genesis 15).

Abraham's travels took him along the migration routes of many species of birds. In the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, he would have seen ducks, geese, partridges, snipe, woodcock, francolins, and magpies. In desert country, he found other types. Crossing mountains and across the plains of Palestine, he must have encountered all the birds mentioned in the Bible.

When Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac, Jehovah substituted a ram at the last moment. Isaac and his son Jacob became the fathers of a mighty people, who, as indicated in Leviticus,

considered doves and pigeons as acceptable sacrifice offerings.

Abraham's great-grandson, Joseph, was brought to Egypt as a slave after being sold by his brothers to a caravan of merchants bound for the Nile. The perfidy of the wife of Potiphar, his master, put Joseph in prison in the company of the Pharaoh's chief butler and chief baker.

"And one night they both dreamed-the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt."

Joseph interpreted for his fellow prisoners the meaning of their dreams. For the butler, he pre

dicted freedom in 3 days. As for the baker, who had dreamed that birds ate out of the topmost of three baskets of baked goods he carried on his head, Joseph had bad news-the baskets were 3 days, after which the Pharaoh would lift the baker's head from off his body. "And the birds," Joseph added, "will eat the flesh from you!"

In time there arose over Egypt a new king who knew not Joseph. Fearful lest the Israelites become more powerful than his native Egyptians, this new Pharaoh ordered all male infants of the foreigners to be thrown into the river. One infant, who was placed in a cradle and hidden in the reeds on the banks of the Nile, escaped death.

When the Pharaoh's daughter and her companions came down to the river to bathe they found this Hebrew child. The princess took the infant from the water's edge and decided to rear it as her own son. She named him Moses, which means "drawout," for she drew him out of the water.

Followed then the careful education of Moses by Pharaoh's daughter, which must have included

a proficiency in recognizing the scores of bird signs that are to be found among the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt.

As a young man, Moses saw the native Egyp tians worshipping such birds as the sacred ibis. Their god, Thoth, disguised himself as an ibis. The worship of this bird could be attributed to the fact that its favorite diet is scorpions and small reptiles. Other birds venerated by Egyptians included the vulture of Nekhebt, the falcon Horis, and the sun god Ra, who, in the form of a bird, was supposed to have hovered over the face of the waters and spread light, just as God's spirit hovered over the darkness as He said, "Let there be light."

Finally came the time, after plagues had visited the land of the Nile, when a mature and dedicated Moses was able to lead his people out of the hands of the Egyptians "unto a land flowing with milk and honey." Before long, thirst and hunger plagued them. Their hunger increased until "there went forth a wind from the Lord, and it brought

quails from the sea, and let them fall beside the camp, about a day's journey on this side and a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and about two cubits above the face of the earth. And the people rose all that day, and all night, and all the next day, and gathered the quails."

Thus were the Israelites fed by the enormous flocks of Egyptian quails (coturnix) that migrate north in the spring and south in the early fall, traveling with the wind and sometimes, as they

did for the benefit of the Israelites, falling to the ground, too exhausted to fly.

Psalm 105: 40-41 also describes these miracles: "They asked, and he brought quails, and gave them bread from heaven in abundance. He opened the rock, and water gushed forth; it flowed through the desert like a river."

The use of birds for food is explained in Old Testament Law: "You may eat all clean birds. But these are the ones which you shall not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey, the buzzard, the