l regarded as incarnations
of deities. So as to portents: loud thunder, taken to be the voice of
the great god Tangaloa, is a good sign; the significance of lightning
(which also is sent by the god) depends upon the direction taken by the
flash. An eclipse is regarded as a presage of death. A similar system of
interpretation of signs is found elsewhere. The Masai and the Nandi draw
omens from the movements of birds.[1604] In Ashantiland the cry of the
owl means death.[1605] When in Australia the track of an insect is
believed to point toward the abode of the sorcerer by whom a man has
been done to death, the conception is probably the same. The modern
Afghans hold that a high wind that continues three days is a sign that a
murder has been committed.[1606] Examples from Brazil, Borneo, New
Zealand, Old Calabar and Tatarland are given by Tylor.[1607] In the
early Hebrew history it appears that a rustling in trees was looked on
as a sign of divine intervention.[1608]

+912+. In ancient Babylonia and Assyria an elaborate system of
interpretation of ordinary occurrences prevailed--the movements and
appearances of various species of birds, of bulls, of dogs of all colors
are noted, with minute interpretations.[1609] The Greeks recognized
omens in the acts of various animals, especially in the flight and cries
of birds; so important were these last that the words for 'bird' came to
be employed for 'omens from birds' and even simply for 'omens';[1610]
Aristophanes, laughing at the Athenians, declares that they called every
mantic sign 'bird'.[1611] Skepticism, however, appears in Hector's
passionate rejection of the signs of birds and his declaration that the
best omen is to fight for one's country.[1612] A similar mantic
prominence of birds appears in ancient Rome where the terms for the
observation of birds (_auspicium_, _augurium_) came to signify 'omens'
in general. The preeminence thus accorded to birds was due perhaps to
the fact that they move in a region above the earth, the larger species
([Greek: oionos]) seeking the sky near the abode of the gods, as well as
to the frequency and variety of their actions.[1613] The feeling of
direct contact with the deity appears in the significance attached to
the movements of a sacrificial animal: if it approached the altar
willingly, this, showing accord with the deity, was a good omen, and
unwillingness was a bad omen.[1614] Among the later Romans the entrance
of a strange black d