Contributions to Natural History.

Opunake Times, Volume III, Issue 140, 5 November 1895, Page 3

Contributions to Natural History.

[By E. E. Edmunds.] The important intelligence which lately appeared in the Opunake Times, of large shipments of poultry from Australasia to the London market, was interesting to all its readers, as a new commercial departure, fraught with profitable possibilities, but it also awakens a host of curious historical reflections. Nothing can be more common - place than “ cocks and hen,” Yet they have a history Brimful of mystery. Most of us will remember the “ ghost ” in “ Hamlet ” fading into thin air at the cock-crow of some adept behind the scenes, and Shakespeare, elsewhere, only mirrors the general belief of his time, that “ At the crowing of the cock, each erring spirit doth hie to his confine.” But we must dig and delve deep into the dead and buried past to reach the source and understand the full significance of this superstition. Primeval man knew nothing of natural laws. Evening, which to us is but the earth in its rotation carrying us out of the sun’s light, was to him a portentious conflict of the powers of darkness and evil with the sun-god ; the carnage of this conflict might suffuse the western sky, but the immortal Ormuzd would spring up in splendor in the morning ; but meanwhile, through the long hours of darkness, the air swarmed with evil spirits—the wicked devas, who worked malignant woes to men ; hence, in the in the few tattered fragments of the ancient Zend language of India, which have come down to us through the lapse of ages, may be read : “ Thou shalt not eat the cock, for is he not the high-priest of Ormuzd, source of light ? At his voice the wicked spirits that injure men fly away ! ” In every land, then, where had spread this worship of the sun—and where had it not ?—this bird became a symbol of, and sacred to, the sun. Through the vast tracts stretching from the Elbe eastward, perhaps to where Moscow now stands—Lithuania —men worshipped it at sunrise on their knees ; through Scythia (Russia) one was sacrificed when a chief died—-and buried with him—by its crowing to ward off the powers of evil in the next word; tho Germans did the same ; and, lastly, when Cnssar invaded Britain (51 8.C.), he found cocks and hens among the natives, but they were forbidden to eat them,” No ancient Persian thought himself safe for a single night without tins guardian, and it may be suggested whether this idea has not by breeding and selection

Tone much to convert the reddi-h-I rowu bird (native of the Himalayas) into the dazzling, golden creature, flashing with sun lights, with the aspiring sacred flame upon his forehead, and his whole mien teeming with inherit'd ages of a cultivated lordly self-importance. However that may be, in jegard of the worship that once prevailed with all its horrid rites, it is like stepping out of midnight murk into clear day to open the first chapter of Genesis aud read : “ And God made two great lights.” This was really the first step in science—to distinguish between the Creator and the created. The Israelite-taught this truth ; but it was the Arab -who took upon himself the task of quenching the old fire worship in the blood of its own votaries. The Moslem set his scimitar to every throat that would not cry with him, “ Allah-il-allah ! ” (God is God!” And how complete is its overthrow now r , when shiploads of poultry are being sent to that very Britain where once it was held too sacred to be eaten ! The very knowledge of such an interdict has almost perished out of time ; aud not one of the many who survey the well-brown’d dainties of to-day will have any scruples at placing a portion comfortably beneath his waistcoat.