TTHE 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 outsing 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. If a Raven hover near a herd of cattle or sheep, a withering blight has already been set upon the animals, hence the song of the bard Benean regarding the rights of the kings of Cashel 1,400 years ago that a certain tributary province should present the king yearly "a thousand goodly cows, not the cows of Ravens." The Waxwing, the beautiful Incendiara avis of Pliny, whose breeding haunts have never yet been discovered by man, are the torches of the Bean-sidhe, or Banshees. When the Cuckoo utters her first note in the spring, if you chance to hear it, you will find under your right foot a white hair; and if you keep this about your person, the first name you thereafter hear will be that of your future husband or wife.

FOUR MOURNFUL SUPERSTITIONS.

Four other birds provide extremely mournful and pathetic superstitions. The Linnet pours forth the most melancholy song of all Irish birds, and I have seen honest-hearted peasants affected by it to tears. On inquiry I found the secret cause to be the belief that its notes voiced the plaints of some unhappy soul in the spirit land. The changeless and interminable chant of the Yellow Bunting is the subject of a very singular superstition. Its notes, begun each afternoon at the precise hour of 3, are regarded as summons to prayer for souls not yet relieved from purgatorial penance. A variety of Finch has notes which resemble what is called the "Bride-groom's song" of unutterable dolor for a lost bride—a legend of superstition easily traceable to the German Hartz mountain peasantry; while in the solemn intensity of the Bittern's sad and plaintive boom, still a universally received token of spirit-warning, can be recognized the origin of the mournful cries of the wailing Banshee.