In the following pages I have attempted to present, in their own words, a tolerably full picture of the Roman attitude toward bird life as reflected in their greatest poets. To this end I have recorded, side by side, the important and the commonplace.

My collections of material are, I believe, fairly comprehensive down into the second century of the Empire. The thread is picked up again in the Latin Anthology. The appended index of the loc. cit. shows exactly what ground has been covered. These collections were begun in my undergraduate days and saved as marginalia at a time when some slight technical skill in taxidermy and ornithology made college and university possible for me. Omissions, errors, and the gap in the later poets may, of course, be checked from the Archiv, when finally completed.

Considerations of space and the check-list arrangement have made it necessary to omit, in the main, citations from the prose writers and references to birds in general. This general restriction of scope has led to other omissions as well, notably the sources and parallels from Greek literature. The poets of both peoples, after all, were but drawing from a common fund of traditional lore, the whence and wherefore of which had become obscured in many places by the lapse of untold years. This is particularly true in matters of astronomic lore, in augury, and in the various myths of metamorphosis. However, as to the Greek background, the curious reader may satisfy himself to weariness by turning to Thompson's indispensable Glossary of Greek Birds. As a ready aid to such readers I have given with each Latin bird-name a parallel synonym in Greek.

I have omitted for the most part any full discussion of astronomical and mythological problems. Such new light as may eventually be thrown upon these two clouded phases of the ancient view of bird lore will come, I think, from gleanings here and there in comparative literature, folklore and anthropology. In order that we may more fully appreciate the continuity of literary tradition and folk observation in this field, we must have a series of studies covering mediaeval and modern European literatures. A detailed study of the birds in the English poets is, perhaps, our most immediate need. Such a survey will command a very large field of readers. As my own contribution to this larger purpose, I may say that in three more years I hope to be able to tell the full story of the birds in our own American poets.

For the most part the Greeks and Romans held the same viewpoint as regards the birds about them. The latter still kept, as their chief exponents of bird song, the nightingale, swallow, halcyon and swan, with all their inherited myths and lore. But, in addition to this, the uninitiated, I believe, will be surprised at the really wide range of observation and sentiment which is encompassed by the Roman poets in this little corner of nature's realm. The consistent Roman attitude toward the song of birds is, to the modern reader, perhaps the most striking thing to be noted. It is simply this: that they nearly always felt a tone of sadness in the songs of their favorite song birds, where we are inclined to feel joy and ecstasy.

This prevalent Roman feeling is due, in my judgment, to the widespread ancient belief in the metamorphosis association. Their favorite birds were not thought of merely as birds per se, but rather as human beings who had been changed into the birds in question. The nightingale and swallow were still Philomel and Progne. This is probably the clue to the rather curious choice of the swan and halcyon as typical song birds. This Roman point of view is the key to the interpretation of the rather frequent literal descriptions of actual metamorphoses scattered through the Latin poets. Horace, assuming before our eyes the form of a swan, is an example of this peculiar usage. This attitude of mind is the basis of several epithets and derivations. Thus, as I still believe, luscinia is best taken as derived from *luges-cinia. The wide use of querulus and related words takes on a new significance when once this basic attitude is taken into consideration.

As we shall see, practically the same species were noted and recorded in the spring and fall migrations; but, in this matter, similar geographical and climatic conditions were contributing elements.

In the matter of identification of species I have of course attempted nothing new. My single year in Italy, occupied largely with the technique of our craft, left scant time for woods, meadows and riverside. Besides, this is the task of years for a finished expert in the birds of Europe. Thrown back, therefore, upon the books, I have tried to catch the prevailing traditional identifications; and in their quest I have spent many pleasant days with Gesner and his kind. However, there still remain a few siftings in the final nomenclature, to be made from the little hints of place, season, color and habit, scattered through the remains of literature and art. These will break up some of the generic names into the probable species which the poets unconsciously had in hand.

Professor W. Warde Fowler has shown us the method with his observations on the crows, ravens and doves. And more recently, Boraston's article in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 31, on the Birds of Homer, has made clear the possibilities of this manner of approach. It must be done, preferably by a native, on the ground; and it may well be the task of some future Italian Thoreau or Burroughs.

Most American village boys know at least the common local birds. But this living contact has been ignored in the rather colorless treatment of the Roman birds in our annotated editions. Possibly, therefore, the reader will be interested in the literary parallels from our American poets. For this particular phase of our study it would have been sufficient for the purpose in view to have taken only the greater poets of the last century, with such minor writers as are included in the later Anthologies of, let us say, Stedman and Sladen.

But as the work grew I became more and more interested in our older poets; so that, as a matter of fact, I have gone through the dusty pages of some hundreds of our all but forgotten earlier writers, and have included also the host of minor poets saved for us in the early anthologies of Kettell, Griswold, Duyckinck and many others. For the literary ornithologist in the earlier periods of our literature, from William Morrell and Jacob Steendam down to Philip Freneau and a generation beyond, there are many peculiar little antiquarian problems. Our birds were then as yet largely unnamed. Alexander Wilson in 1814 listed only two hundred and eighty-three species of North American birds; with Dr. Coues in 1882 the number has grown to nearly nine hundred. Throughout these earlier periods English influence is very strong, and one must be ever watchful for skylarks, mavises, rooks, throstles and nightingales. For the last mentioned, Anne Bradstreet, our first poetess, had a special penchant.

Naturally, in bringing together American and Roman birds, I have attempted no close scientific paralleling of species; I have tried rather to group the birds which have aroused similar reactions in the feelings of their poetic observers. Hence Roman nightingales have suggested American mocking-birds and even whippoorwills, while larks have been answered by bobolinks, and starlings by meadowlarks.

This hunt through our own poets was undertaken first, in order to find out just how much of the ornithological tradition of the classics had percolated, as it were, through time and distance to our own shores. It turns out that there is far more of direct imitation, translation and traditional reminiscence than we should have expected, and a surprising coherence in related observation. In checking over this material I have felt in quite a new way the truism that all literature is one, and that no particular literature can be fully understood alone. And I have felt with new force that Greek and Latin literature can never be divorced from English and American literature. In thus prowling through the literary underbrush of our own past, one comes to have a warm affection for our early bards, and to feel an admiration for the old classical training which everywhere shows its abiding influence. And finally, after counting the birds, one comes to believe with Burroughs, "that the birds are all the birds of the poets and of no one else."

Save that nightingales, larks, and the classic traditions of the halcyon and swan can never be quite forgotten, our poets are in the main content with our own native species. There is, of course, little or nothing from heraldic associations. The younger poets even have favorites to pit against classic Philomel; thus Stedman vouches for the cat-bird, Lanier for the mocking-bird, and Van Dyke, after hearing the nightingale on the banks of the Arno, "longed to hear a simpler strain--the wood notes of the veery."

In upper Austria, in 1845, Bayard Taylor, surrounded by the bird prima donnas of Europe, could still dream of our own meadowlark, oriole and mocking-bird. But General Albert Pike, it seems to me, was a bit overly American, in his youth, when he grouped mock-birds (sic) and humming-birds with Latona in a "rich and lustrous Delian paradise." Yet having noted this trifle, the classical teacher will pause with pleasure over his Hymns to the Gods--Neptune, Apollo, Venus, Diana and the rest "written," as Griswold tells us, "at an early age, principally while he was surrounded by his pupils in the school-room." They are documents of a lost point of view. It is only fair to this very distinguished southern poet and scholar to add that the above offending passage was fully emended in a later edition of his works.

A complete study of the birds in our American poets is something yet to be done, but, in passing, we may note that they record over one hundred different species. Bryant has twenty-eight species; Emerson, Holmes and Lowell over thirty each; while Longfellow lists over fifty, and Whittier something beyond seventy. Their bird lore is nearly always exact and satisfying, and of very wide range and observation. Whittier still had an interest in the old hibernation fallacy of the swallow. Longfellow knew, for example, the recondite myth of the swallow-stone (Plin. XI, 79; XXXVII, 27), and utilized it with great beauty in his Evangeline. Dr. Lebour (vid. The Zoologist, 1866, p. 523; Hartung, Birds of Shakespeare, p. 283) found this myth still a living tradition in Brittany; hence its reappearance in Acadia, where no doubt Longfellow came upon it.

In conclusion, I must thank a long list of teachers and friends for influences and suggestions leading toward a combination of interests, which have been in subsequent years an unfailing source of pleasure. From the earlier academic years I would mention Professor J. R. Kennan. To him the capture or observation of a rare migrant warbler or sparrow was just as important as the capture of an elusive ablative or optative. To Professor Charles E. Bates I owe more than I can ever repay. He was truly one of our great college teachers of Latin. He proudly belonged to the older school--to those who knew their Latin grammar by heart and by paragraph number, and who needed no text in presenting Horace. I owe a similar debt of gratitude to Professor Edward W. Claypole, whose Latin marginalia inscribed upon our notebooks in biology and the like, would now, I suppose, seem to be relics of an order of things that is no more. Pliny and 'il maestro di color che sanno,' were to him still doubly real. Natural science with him was invested with an atmosphere never quite forgotten by his scholars. It was my very good fortune to be under him for four years, in the preparation of a very considerable collection of American birds. From later years, to Professors F. F. Abbott, E. M. Pease, A. T. Murray and H. R. Fairclough, I would pay a student's grateful homage for years of kindly guidance and inspiration. Finally, I am greatly indebted to Professor J. E. Church, Jr., my colleague for two years at the University of Nevada, for unfailing kindness and patience in helping to prepare this rather long paper for publication.

E.W.M.
Stanford University, California,
April 1914.

ACALANTHIS (ACANTHIS). (). Goldfinch, thistle-finch. Carduelis elegans. Vid. Fowler, A Year with the Birds, p. 243. Note IV, RUSCINIA.

American literary parallels: Wild canary, summer yellow-bird, thistle-bird.

Celia Thaxter: Yellow-bird.

Roswell Park: To a Goldfinch.

A summer evening scene with attendant background of bird-song:

Cf. Serv. in loc.: Alii lusciniam csse volunt, alii veto carduelem, quae spinis et carduis pascitur. Vid. Note IV, RUSCINIA.

The acanthis, with the nightingale, is represented (by implication) as endowed with great powers of song:

Vid. Robinson, The Poet's Birds, London, 1883, passim, for most of the European birds in this study as they appear in the poets of England. The author boldly assumes that the British poets (save Tennyson) know next to nothing at first hand of their own native birds and that in this regard they are vastly inferior to the poets of America. Naturally his treatment of the subject is wholly unsympathetic and unfair, though at times suggestive. The work is, however, so full of errors that it must be used with great caution. Cf. int. al. Swanton (Review), A Literary Curiosity. Atlant. 54, 398.

ACCIPITER. . Hawk. A general name for diurnal birds of prey. The accurate identification of the various species is impossible.

American parallel: Hawk.

The name is applied as a title of reproach to a rapacious man:

Disagreeable situations are proverbially called 'hawks'-nests':

Hawks are not worth snaring:

Cf.

If mind were immortal and subject to metempsychosis, the hawk would flee from its traditional prey, the dove:

Cf. Coombs has a stand west of Nut meadow, and he says that he hAS just shot fourteen hawks there which were after pigeons.--THOREAU, op. cit.,¹ p. 116.

Birds at night are ofttimes aroused by dreams of the onslaught of hawks and birds of prey:

Cf.

The calls and cries of hawks and birds of the sea vary with their habits and environment:

For the note of the hawk, vid. Anthologia Latatina 762, 24.

Cf. also Anthologia Latina 733, 6; Wackernagel, op. cit., p. 50.

Cf.

The hawk is portrayed as the foe of smaller birds:

Natura humanis omnia sunt paria: qui pote, plus urget, piscis ut saepe minutos magnu' comest, ut avis enicat accipiter.
(Marcopolis.)--M. TERENTIUS VARRO, Men. Reliq. 2.

¹ For list of works in this study, see Bibliography.