The names of a good many birds serve as synonyms of prevailing ideas, or become figures of speech, without having a special myth or story behind them. Thus the words eagle and falcon convey to the listener the notion of nobility in power, while hawk simply means fierceness, with somewhat of prying, detective skill. Owl provokes in the imagination a rather smiling picture of solemn pretence of wisdom—a reputation, by the way, almost wholly due to the little European screech-owl’s accidental association with Pallas Athene. Swallow suggests spring all over the world; goose and gull connote easy credulity and foolishness; vulture and raven, rapine and cruelty; parrot senseless chatter or the lavish repetition of another’s ideas or sayings; cuckoo, poaching on another man’s domestic preserves; and so on down to the stork, which in Germany symbolizes filial piety because of its fancied solicitude toward aged storks, and which children are taught to believe brings babies from the fountain to their mothers’ laps. The Chinese and Japanese peasantry hold the Mandarin duck in high esteem as a model of conjugal virtues, because it is said to mate for life, and Hindoos feel the same toward their (sarus) crane—a bird that figures extensively in the legendary lore of both China and Japan. Figures of the crane are found decorating bridal attire in Japan, and this bird is commended to womankind generally in Nippon as an example of motherhood to be emulated. “In this respect it is like the pheasant, which is said to stay by her young during a grass-fire, covering them with her outstretched wings until, together, they perish in the flames; for in a similar way the crane shields her young from the bitter cold of the winter snows.”
In ancient Egypt the plume of the ostrich, “on account of the mathematical equality of the opposing barbs in point of length—a peculiarity not present in the primary feathers of any other bird with which the Egyptians were acquainted—was regarded as the sacred symbol of justice.” Osiris was represented with two ostrich plumes in his crown. Says Dr. Cyrus Adler: “The Egyptian considered the hoopoe as symbolical of gratitude because it repays the early kindness of its parents in their old age by trimming their wings and bringing them food when they are acquiring new plumage. The Arabs call it ‘doctor,’ believing it to possess marvellous medicinal qualities, and they use its head in charms and incantations.”
CHAPTER VIII
BLACK FEATHERS MAKE BLACK BIRDS
No one bird known to Americans is so entangled with whatever witchcraft belongs to birds as is the raven, yet little of it is American besides Poe’s melodramatic mummery, whose raven was a borrowed piece of theatrical property. The shrewd people of this country pay little attention to signs and portents, yet some survive among us, for the extravagant notions popularly held as to the sagacity of our crow, with its “courts” and “consultations,” are no doubt traceable in some measure to the bird’s history in Old World superstition.
In Europe no bird, save possibly the cuckoo, is so laden with legends and superstitious veneration as the raven, chiefly, however, in the North, where it is not only most numerous and noticeable but seems to fit better than in the gladsome South. To the rough, virile Baltic man, or to the Himalayan mountaineer, worshipping force, careless of beauty, this sable bird of hard endurance, challenging cry and powerful wing, the “ravener,” tearer, was an admirable creature; while to the more esthetic dweller by the Mediterranean or on Ægean shores such qualities were repulsive, and the raven became a reminder of winter, when alone it was seen in the South, and of the savage forests and hated barbarians whence it came. Much the same antithesis belongs to this bird and its relatives in the minds of Orientals. To understand the impression the raven made on primitive men, and the symbolism and dread that have grown up about it, one must have some knowledge of the real Corvus corax.
The raven is the largest member of the ornithological family Corvidæ, measuring two feet from beak to tail-tip. It is everywhere black, with steel-blue and purplish reflections, and is distinguished from its equally black cousins, the crows, by its stouter beak, somewhat hooked at the tip, and especially by the elongated and pointed feathers on the throat. It is powerful in flight, and is noted for performing queer antics in the air. Judged by its anatomy it stands high in the scale of classification, so that some ornithologists, considering also its intellect, have put it quite at the top of the scale—made it the true King of Birds. In its northern home this species is to be found right around the world, inhabiting Asia and Europe as far south as the great ridge of mountains that extends from Spain to Siberia, and also living in Asia Minor and Syria. It is native to all North America, where no arctic island is too remote to be visited by it in summer. Most of the ravens fly southward in winter from polar latitudes to kindlier regions, but those that stay in the far north become doubly conspicuous in a wilderness of snow, for they do not turn white in winter as do many arctic residents; therefore Goldsmith wasted much philosophy in explaining in his Animated Nature why they “become white.” The raven’s ordinary call-note is well enough described by the words “croak” and “caw,” but it has many variations. Nuttall quotes Porphyrius as declaring that no less than 64 different intonations of the raven’s cries were distinguished by the soothsayers of his day, and given appropriate significance. Some notes are indescribably queer.
Ravens have almost disappeared from thickly settled regions, in striking contrast to their near relatives the crows, rooks, choughs, magpies, jackdaws, and various related species in the Old World, which thrive and grow tame in the company of civilized humanity. Few pairs of ravens remain in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, except on the wilder parts of the Maine coast and about Lake Superior.
Readers of Charles Dickens’s novels will recall the impish specimen “Grip” that Barnaby Rudge used to carry about with him, and which became his fellow-prisoner in jail—and served him right, for he was always declaring “I’m a devil!”
This raven was modelled after an actual pet, named “Grip,” in the family of the novelist when he was writing Barnaby Rudge in 1841. It died in July of that year, and its body passed into the possession of Dr. R. T. Judd, an English collector of Dickens’ material. In 1922 this collection, including the stuffed skin of Grip, and its former cage, labelled with its owner’s name, was offered for sale at the Anderson Galleries in New York. It appears from accompanying letters that as the novel was originally written it contained no reference to the bird; but before the manuscript was completed it occurred to Mr. Dickens that he could make good use of the mischievous creature in the story, as is revealed in a letter to George Cattermole, dated January 28, 1841.
The raven may not only be tamed to the point of domestication, but will learn to speak a few words. Goldsmith asserted, apparently from experience, that it not only would speak but could “sing like a man.” Like all its thievish tribe it loves to pick up and hide objects that attract its quick eye, especially if they are bright, like a silver spoon or a bit of jewelry; and this acquisitive disposition has more than once involved in serious misfortune servants accused of purloining lost articles, as happened in the case of the Jackdaw of Rheims.