This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
110
MYTHS OF THE IROQUOIS.

with the same experience, and this they continued the night long. Then the old man said, very angrily, "There is no game here; my nephews have deceived me." And he returned, leaving the last tree.

After sunrise the poor fellow came down from the tree, saying, "I think I have escaped, for if those young fellows return I will watch them and contrive to get their wings from them." He then concealed himself and patiently awaited their coming. He soon heard their voices, saying, "Now we will have a good time." They first jumped around to warm themselves, and then said, "Let us all dive together." Then he rushed out, and, taking all the wings, he put on one pair, and flew away, calling out, "Uncle, now there is plenty of game for you"; and when they entreated him he replied, "You had no mercy on me; I only treat you the same." Then he flew on until he came to his old home, where he found his old uncle, to whom he recounted the whole story; and after that time he remained peacefully at home with his good uncle, where he still resides.

"So many times my old grandfather, chief Warrior, told me that story," said Zachariah Jamieson to me on the Seneca Reservation.


THE WILD-CAT AND THE WHITE RABBIT.

[Told by Zachariah Jamieson.]

The wild cat, roaming disconsolately in the woods, experienced the sense of utter loneliness which calls for companionship. A friend he must have or die. Cats there were none within speaking distance, but rabbits it might be possible to entice. He commenced a plaintive ditty. His soul craved a white rabbit above all else, and his song was pathetic enough to entice the most obdurate:

He gah yah neh
He gah yah! He găh yăh
Dl ho ni shu guă da-se
He yah gah.

His meaning was simple as his song, "When you are frightened, sweet rabbit, you run in a circle."

He was wise in his generation. A short distance off lay a white rabbit in his lair; hearing the melodious ditty he pricked up his ears. "Heigho!" exclaimed he, "that dangerous fellow, the wild-cat, is around; I hear his voice; I must scud"; and away he ran, turning from the direction in which the voice came and hastening with all his might. He had gone but a short distance when he stopped, turned back his ears and listened. There was the song again:

He găh yăh! He găh yăh!
Diho—