Among the many legends of Isa, as Jesus is called by the Moslems, current among the Mohammedan peoples is a variant of the story of the clay-birds, as follows: "When Isa was seven years old, he and his companions made images in clay of birds and beasts, and Isa, to show his superiority, caused his images to fly and walk at his command." Clouston informs us that this story is also found in the Gospel of the Pseudo-Matthew, and in that of the Infancy (422. II. 408). In Champagne, France, legend makes the cuckoo to have issued from a Christmas log (462. I. 113), and in a Latin poem of the Middle Ages we are told that "the crossbill hatches its eggs at Christmas and the young birds fly in full plumage at Easter" (539. 67). _Animals._ At Christmas certain animals become more human, or express their joy at the birth of Christ in unmistakable fashion. There was an old Scottish belief that "at the exact hour of the Saviour's birth bees in their hive emitted a buzzing sound" (246. 147). According to a Breton folk-tale the ox and the ass can converse for a single hour, "between eleven and twelve on Christmas night." At the same hour, in German folk-lore, all cattle stand up; another version, however, makes them devoutly kneel (462. IV. 1481). Among the animals which folk-thought has brought into connection with the Christ-Child is the horse. A Russian legend tells us that the flesh of the horse is deemed unclean because "when the infant Saviour was hidden in the manger, the horse kept eating the hay under which the babe was concealed, whereas the ox not only would not touch it, but brought back hay on its horns to replace what the horse had eaten" (520. 334). From a Spanish-American miracle-play, we learn that the oxen and asses around the manger kept the little babe warm with their breath. In Ireland the following folk-beliefs obtain regarding the ass and the cow:-- "Joseph and Mary fled into Egypt with the infant Jesus, on an ass. Since that date the ass has had a cross on its back. This same ass returned to Nazareth seven years later with them on its back, travelling in the night, since which time it has been the wisest of all animals; it was made sure-footed for Christ to ride on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and it remains the most sure-footed of all beasts. The ass and cow are looked upon as sacred, because these animals breathed upon the infant Jesus in the manger and kept the child warm. Old women sprinkle holy water on these animals to drive away disease" (480 (1893) 264). In _I Henry IV._ (Act II. Sc. 4) Falstaff says: "The lion will not touch the true Prince," and the divinity which hedged about the princes of human blood was ever present with the son of Joseph and Mary, whose divinity sprang from a purer, nobler fount than that of weak humanity. _The Holy Family._