We all know that vultures, kites and crows scent dead bodies from a
great way off, but we don't all know that these and other kinds of birds
possess, in addition, the psychic property of scenting the advent not
only of the phantom of death, but of many, if not, indeed, all other
spirits. Within my knowledge there have been cases when, before a death
in the house, ravens, jackdaws, canaries, magpies, and even parrots,
have shown unmistakable signs of uneasiness and distress. The raven has
croaked in a high-pitched, abnormal key; the jackdaw and canary have
become silent and dejected, from time to time shivering; the magpie even
has feigned death; the parrot has shrieked incessantly. Owls, too, are
sure predictors of death, and may be heard hooting in the most doleful
manner outside the house of anyone doomed to die shortly. In an article entitled "Psychic Records," the editor of the _Occult
Review_ (in the August number, 1905) supplies the following anecdotes of
ghosts of birds furnished him by his correspondents. "In the autumn of 1877 my husband was lying seriously ill with rheumatic
fever, and I had sat up several nights. At last the doctors insisted on
my going to bed; and very unwillingly I retired to a spare room. While
undressing I was surprised to see a very large white bird come from the
fireplace, make a hovering circle round me, and finally go to the top of
a large double chest of drawers. I was too tired to trouble about it,
and thought I would let it remain until morning. The next morning I said
to the housemaid:

"'There was a large bird in the spare room last night, which flew to the
top of the drawers. See that it is put out.' "The nurse, who was present, said:

"'Oh, dear, ma'am, I am afraid that is an omen, and means the master
won't live,' and she was confirmed in her opinion by the maid saying she
had searched, and there was no trace of any bird. "I was quite angry, as my husband was decidedly better, had slept
through the night, and we thought the crisis had passed. I went to his
bedside and found him quietly sleeping, but he never woke, and in about
an hour passed quietly away. "I thought no more of the bird, fancying I must have been mistaken from
being overtired. "Some months after my husband's death my youngest little one was born;
he lived for twelve months, and then had an attack of bronchitis. He
slept in a cot in my room, and I was undressing one night, when this
same large white bird came from his cot, floated round me, and
disappeared in the fireplace. At the time I did not for a moment think
of it as anything but a strange coincidence, and in no way connected it
with baby's illness. "The next morning I was sitting by the drawing-room fire with baby on my
lap. The doctor came in, looked at him, sounded his chest, and
pronounced him much better. As he was a friend of the family, he sat
down on the other side of the fireplace and was chatting in an ordinary
way, when he suddenly jumped up with an exclamation, 'Why, what does
this mean?' and took the child from my arms quite dead! "For two years we saw nothing more of the white bird, and we had moved
to another place. "One day I was in my room, and my two little girls, aged six and eight,
were standing at the window watching a kitten in the garden, when
suddenly the youngest cried out:

"'Oh, mamma! Look at that great white bird,' putting her hands as if to
catch it, exactly in the way it flies round one. "I saw nothing, and the elder child said, 'Don't be silly, Jessie; there
is no bird.' "'But there is,' said the child. 'Don't you see? There, look! There it
is!' "I looked at my watch. It was twenty minutes past three. "Two days after we received the news that a niece of mine had died at
twenty minutes past three. The children had never known anything of the
former appearances, as we had never talked about it before them. We have
seen nothing since of the bird, but have for some years had no death in
the family." So runs the article in the _Occult Review_, and I can corroborate it
with similar experiences that have happened to my friends and to me. Some years ago, for instance, a great friend of my wife's died, and on
the day of the funeral a large bird tried to fly in at the window of the
room where the corpse lay; while, shortly afterwards, an exactly similar
bird visited the window of my wife's and my room in a house, several
hundreds of miles away. If it was only a coincidence, it was a very
extraordinary one. Then again, this spring, just before the death of one of my wife's
relatives, a large bird flew violently against the window-pane behind
which my wife was sitting--an incident that had never happened to her in
that house before. Undoubtedly, spirits in the guise of birds--most probably they are the
phantasms of birds that have actually once lived on the material
plane--are the messengers of death. _A Case of Bird haunting in East Russia_

Some years ago the neighbourhood of Orskaia, in East Russia, was roused
by an affair of a very remarkable nature. The body of a handsome young
peasant woman, called Marthe Popenkoff, was found in a lonely part of
the road, between Orskaia and Orenburg, with the skin of her face and
body shockingly torn and lacerated, but without there being any wounds
deep enough to cause her death, which the doctor attributed to syncope. The people of Orskaia, not satisfied with this verdict, declared Marthe
had been murdered, and made such a loud clamour that the editor of the
local paper at last voiced their sentiments in the _East Russia
Chronicle_. It was then that M. Durant, a smart young French engineer,
temporarily residing in those parts, became interested in the case, and
decided to investigate it thoroughly. With this end in view he wrote to
his friend M. Hersant--a keen student of the Occult--in Saratova, to
join him, and three days after the despatch of his letter met the latter
at the Orskaia railway station. M. Durant retailed the case as they
drove to his house. "It is a remarkable affair, in every way," he said. "The woman was
leading a perfectly respectable married life; she was hard-working and
industrious, and beyond the fact that she was over-indulgent to her
children, does not seem to have had any serious faults. As far as I can
ascertain she had no enemies." "Nor secret lovers?" M. Hersant asked. "No; she was quite straight." "And you feel sure she was murdered?" "I do. Public opinion so strongly favours that view." "Did you see the marks on the woman?" "I did, and could make nothing of them. After supper I will take you to
see her, in the morgue." "What--she is still unburied?" "Yes--but there is nothing unusual about that. In these parts bodies
are often kept for ten days--sometimes even longer." M. Durant was as good as his word; after they had partaken of a somewhat
hasty meal, they set out to the morgue, where they made a careful
inspection of the poor woman's remains.