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NCE upon a time, long, long ago, when the plundered and harassed Aztecs were fleeing southward over the great plateau of Central Mexico, their priests told them that in due season a spot would be found where they might build a city and in time become a great people.

The tale runs that the priests united in the further prophesy that when the time should come that an eagle should be seen to alight on a cactus with a serpent in its talons they would know that their wanderings were over, and that on this spot the city should be founded.

At length they reached a great valley between high mountains where a powerful nation, called the Toltecs held domain. Here by a shallow lake they tarried, but while fishing one day some of the people saw an eagle with a snake alight on a cactus on one of the islands. Here then was founded Tenochtitlan, to-day known as Mexico City, and the eagle, snake and cactus are emblazoned on the Mexican national shield and on every Mexican peso.

It is a rather curious fact throughout history that in so many widely separated countries the eagle has been chosen as the national bird.

The legions of Cæsar followed behind the Roman eagle. Then there is the German eagle, and the double-headed eagle of the Dual Monarchy.

In the United States we, of course, have the American eagle, which, by the way, is in no sense a strictly American bird, being found as abundant in northern Europe and Asia as it is here.

Nor strictly speaking is the Mexican eagle really an eagle, that is to say, it is as much of a vulture as it is an eagle. It is known to the naturalist as Audubon's Caracara. It is very common in Mexico, where it feeds on lizards, snakes and other delectable morsels that inhabit that interesting country. They are very abundant in many sections. Usually several may be seen in the course of a day's run over the Mexican Plateau. In the State of Nuevo Leon I remember seeing six at one time from a car window.

A few of these birds cross the Rio Grande and over a limited area of southern Florida they are now and then met with. Recently one of the Audubon Society's wardens came upon a nest of these unusual birds perched in the top of a cabbage palm. In order to make a photographic record of this rare find, he temporarily removed the nest to the ground and made what is believed to be the first photograph of a young Caracara taken in the United States.

During the days when the millinery trade was at its height there were great demands for "eagle feathers." Most of us can remember when for two or three seasons nearly every woman one met on the street seemed to have one or two long quills sewed on her hat. Now there were not enough eagle quills obtainable to supply this demand, so brown pelicans in Florida were shot and their wing feathers sent to New York and sold under the trade name of "eagle feathers." Along the Gulf Coast of Mexico and some of the regions of Lower California, the plume-hunters plied their trade.

The Caracara ordinarily is remarkably easy to kill. At times, probably after they have just had a good meal, or when they appear to be profoundly wrapped wrapped in thought, the gunner may easily approach within shooting distance.

In South Florida I have on more than one occasion approached within fifty feet of these oddlooking birds before they would begin their laborious flight.

However, the plume trade has received such severe blows as a result of legislation prohibiting the importation of feathers into the United States and barring the sale of feathers in many cities, that it would appear for the present at least the Caracara as a species is safe. As a matter of fact there are far more of these birds in Mexico than there are bald eagles in North America. The young Mexicans therefore are far more familiar with their national bird than are the young Americans with their emblem of national independence.

guard faces upper Fifth Avenue where an unceasing procession of human beings young and old passes by quite unconscious that fearsomeness is so

near.

How good it would seem to believe now and then in the protecting power hidden within some image of strength and might, to feel that no harm could come, no evil spirits try their power while the great lions stood at your gateway. One cannot but envy the simple faith that moved the craftsmen of these great works to put the best of their art into these figures.

Nearly two years ago, or on February 7, 1916, sitting in the American Art Galleries, Mr. E. I. Farmer was the successful bidder of a pair of gigantic Fulions which were in the Yamanaka Oriental collection of that winter. Visitors to his galleries at 5 West 56th Street who have seen them there will now miss them, for Yamanaka and Company have bought them back again, paying an agreeable profit to place them in their new establishment next to St. Thomas's Church.

The Yamanakas, entering a new home which is to be Oriental, wanted these "guardians of the threshold" to maintain the established order, as they are used in temples and in nobles' houses and gardens in China,

where their traditional function is to warn away evil influences. In paying an advanced price the Yamanakas were but compelled by the laws governing worthy works of art here, which appreciate with a consistent regularity.

The lions are the largest ever brought to this country, and came from a Peking palace yard. The Yamanakas wanted them again, and Mr. Farmer allowed them to have them.

Cloisonné is an art that is fast slipping away from the Japanese. It requires a lifetime to be skilful at it and the true master of the art must begin his craft at a very early age to bring it to perfection by the time he has come to manhood. One cannot think how these great figures could have been constructed in so difficult a medium but with the beliefs which were held by the Japanese craftsman of two hundred years ago, no work of the hands, no toil of the brain were too much to lavish upon these fierce images who were to stand forever as protecting spirits for the home.