"Very pretty, indeed, and except that I think
it was cruel to cage such birds as swallows, I
should like to see such a custom still."

"Well, go to Greece, and you may have your
wish, for Fauriel, in his Chants de la Grèce
Moderne, tells us that a similar song is still
popular there. But perhaps the romance will
wear off somewhat when I tell you that not only
swallows, but almost anything, when first in
season, was used by the Greeks of various
classes as excuse for begging. Thus, the boys
carried about, at certain feasts of Apollo, harvest-
wreaths of olive or laurel wound round with
wool, and the song they sang with them became
a generic title for all begging songs. And
while the Rhodian boys carried swallows about,
the Greek strollers were in the habit of singing
what was called the crow-song—gathering for
the crow, as they called it, which they also
carried with them in a cage. One of these
crow-songs is also preserved by Athenæus, and
curiously enough a modern Greek crow-song
may be found in Fauriel's song-book, which I
mentioned just now."

"Have you found out yet where the swallows
go to in winter?" I asked.

"I can't say that I have made much progress
in that inquiry, I am sorry to confess," returned
Jackdaw. "There are plenty of vague guesses,
but as for facts, very few have ventured upon
positive statements, and even then they are not
trustworthy. Nor, indeed, are they anything
new. Suppose a modern traveller asserts that
he lias seen European swallows at Senegal in
winter—— "

"Well, come—surely that is a step in
advance," I broke in.

"Or rather a stride backward," retorted my
friend. "It is nothing more than saying that
they go to Africa in winter, which we might
have been pretty sure of. But Herodotus
announced the same thing twenty-three centuries
ago, when he said that swallows are found about
the springs of the Nile all the year; and if that
is vague, ask Anacreon, and he tells you
distinctly, in one of his pretty odes, that the swallow
which builds a nest here in the summer,
disappears in winter, and flies either to the Nile or
to Memphis. But talking of migration, look
there!"

And, as he spoke, he pointed to the sky, where
I observed what looked at first like a great
black V moving along in the air.

"What is it?" I exclaimed.

"Geese, probably, though it is late for
them; but see, they are going north. Watch
them."

I did watch them, for my eyes were riveted
upon the unbroken figure, which consisted of a
score or two of birds floating away in the upper
regions of the atmosphere, as though impelled
by a single will, to their mysterious
destination. The uninterrupted lines maintained a
marvellous regularity, and gradually faded away
in the distant horizon, till they appeared like
spider's threads, never losing their wonderful
symmetry and definiteness of outline, till my
failing eyesight could follow their track no
longer.

When they had disappeared, I could not help
expressing my gratification at the sight, and I
asked Jackdaw why and how they flew in that
curious form.

"Various reasons have been suggested," he
replied. "Buffon imagines that the strongest
naturally keeps the front, and the others, with
less power of flight, must needs follow behind,
but that would not account for the perfect
regularity of the figure. In fact, I think, after all,
Cicero's explanation is the best."

"Cicero!" I cried, with surprise, "why, what
did he know about birds? I thought he was an
orator. I know how his Tusculan questions
bored my life at Rugby."

"Ah," Jackdaw answered, smiling, "but then,
you see, he was an augur, and it was his business
to know something, or pretend to know
something, about birds. He wrote books, you know,
about Divination and Fate, and about the nature
of the gods, and in the latter he remarks that
cranes, when they migrate, fly in the form of a
triangle, point foremost, so as to present as
little resistance as possible to the air, and with
the base behind, upon which the wind, which
was usually with them, might act, and impel
them along. He further supposed that the
leader had the hardest work to do, and that
when he was fatigued, he dropped back, and
another took his place while he rested, and thus
they took it in turns to pilot the company."

"Upon my word, Jackdaw," I exclaimed,
admiringly, "you are a regular classical bird
dictionary, and ought to get yourself bound up
with Lemprière. I should think in our
schooldays none of the fellows would have thought
of sending you for pigeon's milk."

"Ah, there again," he said, "that joke is as
old as the hills, though probably most boys
would be ready to swear it was their own
discovery."

"Do you really, then, mean to say that
'pigeon's milk' is another Grecian antiquity?"

"In a sense it is. The Greeks, it is true, did
not talk particularly of pigeon's milk, but the
term 'bird's milk' was often used. It was
used anciently to imply some extraordinary good
fortune, or some marvellous and unheard-of
dainty, and occurs several times in Aristophanes,
as in his comedies of the Wasps and the
Birds. He implies the same thing in the Frogs
by the term 'ass's wool,' just as any
improbability was incredulously called a 'white crow,'
or a 'black swan.' The connexion in which
the expression 'bird's milk' is used by
Aristophanes you may best judge of from a passage in
the Birds, which also shows the esteem in which
the feathered race used to be held. Gary
translates it thus:

            And all gifts we bring to you—
      Wealth, and peace, and flowing treasure;
      Health, and joy, and youth, and pleasure;
      Love and laughter, smiles and silk,
      Song, feast, dance, and pigeon's milk."

"Well, but surely," observed I, "there must