Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/327

 alertness in acting upon every thought, are a ready instrument for the use of God, who can prompt their movements, their cries and songs, their pauses or wind-like flights, thus bidding some men check, and others pursue to the end, their course of action or ambitions. It is on this account that Euripides calls birds in general "heralds of gods," while Socrates speaks of making himself "a fellow-servant with swans."'

In this special class of ominous birds the principal group, says the same French writer, was composed of the eagle ([Greek: aetos]), the messenger of Zeus, the 'most perfect of birds '; the vulture ([Greek: gyps]), which closely rivalled even the king of birds ; the raven ([Greek: korax]), the favourite and companion of Apollo, a bird so much observed that there were specialists ([Greek: korakomanteis]) who studied no other species; and the carrion-crow ([Greek: korônê]), transferred from the service of Apollo to that of Hera or Athene. These, it may safely be said, were observed at all periods. Of others, various species of hawk ([Greek: hierax, irêx])—in particular that known as [Greek: kirkos], acting in Homeric times as the 'swift messenger of Apollo ' and thus rivalling the raven—and with them the heron ([Greek: erôdios]) enjoyed in early times great respect, but gradually fell out of favour with the augur. But as these disappeared from the canon of ornithological divination, certain other birds were admitted, the wren ([Greek: trochilos] or [Greek: basiliskos]), the owl ([Greek: glaux])[10], the [Greek: krex] dubiously identified with our 'rail' (crex rallus, Linn), and the woodpecker ([Greek: dryokolaptês]).

The continuity of the art of taking auspices is at once obvious when it is found that the birds which the modern peasant most frequently observes are of the very same class which furnished the Homeric gods with their special envoys. Eagles, vultures, hawks, ravens, crows—these are still the chief messengers of heaven, and only one other bird can claim equality with them, that bird which in classical times symbolised wisdom, the owl.

Of the methods pursued by the professional augurs in ancient Greece unfortunately less is known. The best treatise on the.]