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The stem was ash, three feet long, wound with porcupine quills to form pictures of men and animals; decorated with wood-peckers' skins and heads, and the hair of the white buffalo's tail. It was half painted red, and notched for the years of his life. His quiver was of panther skin and filled with arrows, flint pointed and steel pointed, and some bloody.

The solitary white-rumped shrike is occasionally met with in late summer. Owls are common but what species other than the western horned owl I do not know. Other rather rare birds are the beautiful lazuli bunting and the western warbling vireo. Among the wood-peckers I have also noted the bristle-bellied wood-pecker, or Lewis's wood-pecker, Harris's wood-pecker, and the downy wood-pecker.

Then said Sigurd, "The time is unborn wherein Regin shall be my bane; nay, rather one road shall both these brothers fare." And therewith he drew his sword Gram and struck off Regin's head. Then heard Sigurd the wood-peckers a-singing, even as the song says. For the first sang: "Bind thou, Sigurd, The bright red rings! Not meet it is Many things to fear.

They again that are behind, urge the warriors to advance; while they that are ahead, forbid all advance. Where vultures, swans, parrots, cranes, and wood-peckers utter delightful cries, and wheel towards the right, the Brahmanas say that their victory in battle is certain.

"The wren," he says, "is an active songster among the hazel boughs. Beautifully hooded birds, wood-peckers, fair white birds, herons, sea-gulls, come to visit me." There is no mournful music in his island; and as for loneliness, there is no such thing in "My lowly little abode, hidden in a mane of green-barked yew-tree.

Robins called; bluejays screeched in the tall, white oaks; wood-peckers hammered in the dead hard-woods, and crows cawed overhead. Squirrels chattered everywhere. Ruffed grouse rose with great bustle and a whirr, flitting like brown flakes through the leaves. From far above came the shrill cry of a hawk, followed by the wilder scream of an eagle.

In the forest areas of the hotter regions it is different; there the birds form large gatherings or "wandering bands," composed of all the different species found in each district, associated with birds of other families wood-peckers, tyrant-birds, bush shrikes, and many others.

The images of gods and goddesses sometimes laugh, sometimes tremble, and sometimes again these vomit blood through their mouths and sometimes they sweat and sometimes fall down. Kokilas, wood-peckers, jaws, water-cocks, parrots, crows, and peacocks, utter terrible cries. Here and there, cavalry soldiers, cased in mail, armed with weapons, send forth fierce shouts.

A flock of pelicans, and two or three brown fishing eagles, were fishing in its agitated waters, seemingly with great success. There is a good sturgeon fishery at the foot of the rapid. Several golden plovers, Canadian grosbeaks, cross-bills, wood-peckers, and pin-tailed grouse, were shot to-day; and Mr. Back killed a small striped marmot.

Then Sigurd went his ways and roasted it on a rod; and when the blood bubbled out he laid his finger thereon to essay it, if it were fully done; and then he set his finger in his mouth, and lo, when the heart-blood of the worm touched his tongue, straightway he knew the voice of all fowls, and heard withal how the wood-peckers chattered in the brake beside him