Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/421

Rh when it is spring-time, the kite screams out, Fìlokòhokòho [filo, a needle; akòho, a fowl], calling on the fowl for his lost needle."

Here are two or three proverbs about Eggs, mostly referring to those of the fowl: "Eggs can't fight with stones"; "Eggs not sat on won't become chickens"; "Words are like eggs, when hatched, they have wings." There are several popular superstitions about eggs; thus, for a hen to lay either a very large or a very small egg, is considered to be ominous of evil or good; and so, also, an egg laid without a proper shell (atòdimalèmy) is thought to forebode evil.

Two or three quotations from the proverbs referring to birds generally may conclude this section; thus: "Don't cry for a bird all but obtained"; "Don't reckon on (or cry for) a bird still in the air"; "Words are carried by a flying bird" (cf Eccles. x, 20); "The bird may forget the snare, but the snare does not forget the bird."

I have now completed what I proposed to do at the outset of this paper, viz., to gather together all that I believe is at present known as to the folk-lore of the birds of Madagascar. It is, of course, a very small contribution to the subject, especially when contrasted with such a charming and complete book as that of the Rev. C. Swainson on the Folk-lore of British Birds, and issued by this Society three or four years ago. But I ask that it may be remembered that this is new ground; that there are still comparatively few Europeans living in Madagascar, and that of these there are probably hardly half-a-dozen who take much interest in folk-lore. Besides this, a good many Malagasy tribes are only very slightly known, and even from those peoples whom we know best, but little information on folk-lore matters has yet been collected. Doubtless there is still very much in all such subjects to reward the efforts of those who may travel more widely in the great island, and who will more thoroughly investigate