THE HEDGEWARBLER, known more popularly as the “Irish Nightingale,” is the object of a most tender superstition. By day it is a roystering fellow enough, almost as impish as our American Mocking Bird, in its emulative attempts to demonstrate its ability to out-sing the original songs of any feathered melodist that ventures near its haunts among the reeds by the murmuring streams. But when it sings at night, and particularly at the exact hour of midnight, its plaintive and tender notes are no less than the voices of babes that thus return from the spirit land to soothe their poor, heart-aching mothers for the great loss of their darlings. The hapless little Hedge Sparrow has great trouble in raising any young at all, as its beautiful bluish-green eggs when strung above the hob are in certain localities regarded as a potent charm against divers witch spells, especially those which gain an entrance to the cabin through the wide chimney. On the contrary, the grayish-white and brown-mottled eggs of the Wag-tail are never molested, as the grotesque motion of the tail of this tiny attendant of the herds has gained for it the uncanny reputation and name of the Devil’s bird.

            THE STARLING, THE MAGPIE, AND
                             THE CROW.

When the starling does not follow the grazing cattle some witch charm has been put upon them. The Magpie, as with the ancient Greeks, is the repository of the soul of an evil-minded and gossiping woman. A round-tower or castle ruin unfrequented by Jackdaws is certainly haunted. The “curse of the crows” is quite as malevolent as the “curse of Cromwell.” When a “Praheen Cark” or Hen Crow is found in the solitudes of mountain glens, away from human habitations, it assuredly possesses the wandering soul of an impenitent sinner.