villages, and even the royal city, Jerusalem. These birds were so fed and petted by the people that later Pliny wrote that in Rome a man could call a pigeon from the nest on which she brooded, to his hand, as he sat inside his home.

In some instances where even the latest and most scholarly revision of the Bible says doves," the text makes it quite plain that pigeons were the birds intended by the writer. Take the beautiful song of Redemption sung by Isaiah, in the sixtieth chapter of his book, and study this couplet :

"Who are these that fly as a cloud,
And as doves to their windows?"

Doves were wild birds; they had no windows. But the openings for the entrance of pigeons to their clay cotes closely resembled latticed windows. Moreover, doves lived their lives in pairs and flew "in clouds" only twice a year, at the times of migration. The pigeons, of villages and cities scattered over the country searching the grain fields, plains, and thickets for seeds and other food, and returned to their cotes "in clouds" at all hours of the day, all the year long. This makes me positive that the last line should read, And as pigeons to their windows?" Also I am sure that the dove that dwelt in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the steep place," was a rock pigeon.

Any reference to the voice of these birds would apply equally to either by one not skilful in bird notes, and I have not a doubt but the cages that Jesus removed from the temple contained almost as many pigeons as doves.

The records of no other country show that pigeons were so housed and protected as in Bible lands; and it may be from centuries of such intimacy with them that men of those nations are to-day the breeders of the finest pigeons in the whole world. There was originated the rare black carrier, the trumpeter, and the fantail.

Pliny wrote of pigeons under the heading of "housedoves." He recorded their faithful life in pairs, and all the things which other observers have to say of these

birds. He was of the opinion that the male was a little more "harsh and imperious," than any historian with whose work I am familiar. Among points not commonly noted he said, “So soon as the eggs be hatched, ye shall see them at the very first spit into the mouths of the young pigeons salt and brackish earth, which they have gathered in their throat, thereby to prepare their appetite to meat and season their stomachs against the time that they should eat." He made a note concerning their manner of drinking not often mentioned: "Housedoves and turtle-doves have this property, in their drinking not to hold up their bills between whiles, and draw their necks back, but to take a large draught at once as horses and kine do." He wrote beautifully of their joyous flight, merely to work off an excess of delight in living and of the clapping of wings with which it was accomplished. In what he had to say of pigeons there was less of superstition and tradition than any other bird. No doubt this was because they were familiar objects around his home, and he could see for himself what they did.

Because of all the reasons enumerated here and in the dove chapter these two birds were the most loved and honoured above all others in the Bible.

"

CHAPTER XIX
THE CRANE

Like a crane so did I chatter."-ISAIAH.

THE crane is mentioned twice in the Bible. Once because it made an unforgettable picture in migration, and again because its voice was a distinctive feature of bird life. Isaiah said, "Like a crane, so did I chatter." If he did, he must have been quite noisy, for the cranes are voluminous talkers, and when they are in a favourable location their voices can be heard for two miles. They fly in wedged-shaped companies in migration, and cry almost constantly. We express it by "whooping" or "trumpeting," but the Arabs call it "bellowing." At any rate, it was a sound of sufficient force to be used by Isaiah in strong comparison, and helped bring the bird into the Bible.

The other characteristic of the crane that introduced it was that it was migratory. Jeremiah recorded that "the crane observe the time of their coming." The people watched for the crane. It was a sure sign of spring, the best-loved season, and the bird was, after the pelican, the largest that migrated, and next to the pelican and ostrich in size. It stood four feet in height, and was eight feet from tip to tip, so that it was a spectacle as it came winging across the Red Sea or stalked over the country.

Cranes were not nearly so numerous as the storks, but yet great flocks of them stopped in the wilderness south of Jerusalem, around Beersheba, and a few pairs homed near water so far as Merom, where cultivated land attracted them. From there the great body of the species crossed the Mediterranean to Europe. Of this journey of the cranes Pliny wrote: "And verily, if a man consider well how far it is from hence to the Levant Sea, it is a

mighty great journey that they take, and their flight exceeding long. They put not themselves in their journey, nor set forward without a council called before, and a general consent. They fly aloft because they would have a better prospect to see before them: and for this purpose a captain they choose to guide them, whom the rest follow. In the rearward behind there be certain of them set and disposed to give signal by their manner of cry, for to range orderly in ranks and to keep close together in array and this they do by turns, each in his course. They maintain a set watch all the night long, and have their sentinels. These stand on one foot and hold a little stone within the other, which by falling from it, if they would chance to sleep, might awaken them and reprove them for their negligence. While these watch, all the rest sleep, couching their heads under their wings; and one while they rest on one foot and otherwhiles they shift to the other. The captain beareth up his head aloft into the air, and giveth signal to the rest what is to be done. These cranes, if they be made tame and gentle, are very playful and wanton birds, and they will one by one dance as it were, and run round with their long necks shaking full untowardly. This is surely known, that when they mind to take a flight over the Sea Pontus, they will fly at first directly to the narrow point at the straights of the said sea, lying between the two capes Criu-Metophon and Carambis, and then presently they ballast themselves with stones in their feet, and sand in their throats, that they fly more steady and endure the wind. When they be half way over, down they fling these stones: but when they are come to the continent the sand also they disgorge out of their craw."

As this stands, it is fairly good natural history, save the stone and sand part of it, which is pure tradition, and incredible. It is instances like these, in the case of what almost might be called contemporaneous writers, that make the older historians of the Bible appear so sane and vital in what they have to say of the birds.

Aristotle said cranes fought so fiercely that men might take them alive while engaged in a battle, and also that

many prudent actions appear to be performed by cranes." But what these actions were, he did not state.

In their chosen locations they nested on the ground, or in colonies in trees. Their nests were large heaps of twigs and debris, and they laid two big eggs differing with species. The white cranes laid rough, pale-blue eggs having brown splotches on the larger end; and the brown birds a light drab with brown speckles. They were careful parents, though not so tender and loving as storks. They ate mice, rats, moles, and any small animal they could capture, as well as frogs and lizards.