But the main structure of the noble weapon we may with little pains understand.

[14] See App. p. 112, Sec. 145.

72. In the sections a and b of Fig. 5, I have only represented the quills of the outer part of the wing. The relation of these, and of the inner quills, to the bird's body may be very simply shown.

Fig. 6 is a rude sketch, typically representing the wing of any bird, but actually founded chiefly on the sea-gull's.



It is broadly composed of two fans, A and B. The out-most fan, A, is carried by the bird's hand; of which I rudely sketch the contour of the bones at a. The innermost fan, B, is carried by the bird's forearm, from wrist to elbow, b.

The strong humerus, c, corresponding to our arm from shoulder to elbow, has command of the whole instrument. No feathers are attached to this bone; but covering and protecting ones are set in the skin of it, completely filling, when the active wing is open, the space between it and the body. But the plumes of the two great fans, A and B, are set into the bones; in Fig. 8, farther on, are shown the projecting knobs on the main arm bone, set for the reception of the quills, which make it look like the club of Hercules. The connection of the still more powerful quills of the outer fan with the bones of the hand is quite beyond all my poor anatomical perceptions, and, happily for me, also beyond needs of artistic investigation.

73. The feathers of the fan A are called the primaries. Those of the fan B, secondaries. Effective actions of flight, whether for support or forward motion, are, I believe, all executed with the primaries, every one of which may be briefly described as the strongest cimeter that can be made of quill substance; flexible within limits, and elastic at its edges—carried by an elastic central shaft—twisted like a windmill sail—striking with the flat, and recovering with the edge.

The secondary feathers are more rounded at the ends, and frequently notched; their curvature is reversed to that of the primaries; they are arranged, when expanded, somewhat in the shape of a shallow cup, with the hollow of it downwards, holding the air therefore, and aiding in all the pause and buoyancy of flight, but little in the activity of it. Essentially they are the brooding and covering feathers of the wing; exquisitely beautiful—as far as I have yet seen, most beautiful—in the bird whose brooding is of most use to us; and which has become the image of all tenderness. "How often would I have gathered thy children ... and ye would not."

74. Over these two chief masses of the plume are set others which partly complete their power, partly adorn and protect them; but of these I can take no notice at present. All that I want you to understand is the action of the two main masses, as the wing is opened and closed.

Fig. 7 roughly represents the upper surface of the main feathers of the wing closed. The secondaries are folded over the primaries; and the primaries shut up close, with their outer edges parallel, or nearly so. Fig. 8 roughly shows the outline of the bones, in this position, of one of the larger pigeons.[15]



[15] I find even this mere outline of anatomical structure so interferes with the temper in which I wish my readers to think, that I shall withdraw it in my complete edition.

75. Then Fig. 9 is (always sketched in the roughest way) the outer, Fig. 10 the inner, surface of a sea-gull's wing in this position. Next, Fig. 11 shows the tops of the four lowest feathers in Fig. 9, in mere outline; A separate (pulled off, so that they can be set side by side), B shut up close in the folded wing, C, opened in the spread wing.



76. And now, if you will yourselves watch a few birds in flight, or opening and closing their wings to prune them, you will soon know as much as is needful for our art purposes; and, which is far more desirable, feel how very little we know, to any purpose, of even the familiar creatures that are our companions.

Even what we have seen to-day[16] is more than appears to have been noticed by the most careful painters of the great schools; and you will continually fancy that I am inconsistent with myself in pressing you to learn, better than they, the anatomy of birds, while I violently and constantly urge you to refuse the knowledge of the anatomy of men. But you will find, as my system develops itself, that it is absolutely consistent throughout. I don't mean, by telling you not to study human anatomy, that you are not to know how many fingers and toes you have, nor how you can grasp and walk with them; and, similarly, when you look at a bird, I wish you to know how many claws and wing-feathers it has, and how it grips and flies with them. Of the bones, in either, I shall show you little; and of the muscles, nothing but what can be seen in the living creature, nor, often, even so much.

[16] Large and somewhat carefully painted diagrams were shown at the lecture, which I cannot engrave but for my complete edition.

77. And accordingly, when I now show you this sketch of my favorite Holbein, and tell you that it is entirely disgraceful he should not know what a wing was, better, I don't mean that it is disgraceful he should not know the anatomy of it, but that he should never have looked at it to see how the feathers lie.

Now Holbein paints men gloriously, but never looks at birds; Gibbons, the wood-cutter, carves birds, but can't men;—of the two faults the last is the worst; but the right is in looking at the whole of nature in due comparison, and with universal candor and tenderness.

78. At the whole of nature, I say, not at super-nature—at what you suppose to be above the visible nature about you. If you are not inclined to look at the wings of birds, which God has given you to handle and to see, much less are you to contemplate, or draw imaginations of, the wings of angels, which you can't see. Know your own world first—not denying any other, but being quite sure that the place in which you are now put is the place with which you are now concerned; and that it will be wiser in you to think the gods themselves may appear in the form of a dove, or a swallow, than that, by false theft from the form of dove or swallow, you can represent the aspect of gods.

79. One sweet instance of such simple conception, in the end of the Odyssey, must surely recur to your minds in connection with our subject of to-day, but you may not have noticed the recurrent manner in which Homer insists on the thought. When Ulysses first bends and strings his bow, the vibration of the chord is shrill, "like the note of a swallow." A poor and unwarlike simile, it seems! But in the next book, when Ulysses stands with his bow lifted, and Telemachus has brought the lances, and laid them at his feet, and Athena comes to his side to encourage him,—do you recollect the gist of her speech? "You fought," she says, "nine years for the sake of Helen, and for another's house:—now, returned, after all those wanderings, and under your own roof, for it, and its treasures, will you not fight, then?" And she herself flies up to the house-roof, and thence, in the form of the swallow, guides the arrows of vengeance for the violation of the sanctities of home.

80. To-day, then, I believe verily for the first time, I have been able to put before you some means of guidance to understand the beauty of the bird which lives with you in your own houses, and which purifies for you, from its insect pestilence, the air that you breathe. Thus the sweet domestic thing has done, for men, at least these four thousand years. She has been their companion, not of the home merely, but of the hearth, and the threshold; companion only endeared by departure, and showing better her loving-kindness by her faithful return. Type sometimes of the stranger, she has softened us to hospitality; type always of the suppliant, she has enchanted us to mercy; and in her feeble presence, the cowardice, or the wrath, of sacrilege has changed into the fidelities of sanctuary. Herald of our summer, she glances through our days of gladness; numberer of our years, she would teach us to apply our hearts to wisdom;—and yet, so little have we regarded her, that this very day, scarcely able to gather from all I can find told of her enough to explain so much as the unfolding of her wings, I can tell you nothing of her life—nothing of her journeying: I cannot learn how she builds, nor how she chooses the place of her wandering, nor how she traces the path of her return. Remaining thus blind and careless to the true ministries of the humble creature whom God has really sent to serve us, we in our pride, thinking ourselves surrounded by the pursuivants of the sky, can yet only invest them with majesty by giving them the calm of the bird's motion, and shade of the bird's plume:—and after all, it is well for us, if, when even for God's best mercies, and in His temples marble-built, we think that, "with angels and archangels, and all the company of Heaven, we laud and magnify His glorious name"—well for us, if our attempt be not only an insult, and His ears open rather to the inarticulate and unintended praise, of "the Swallow, twittering from her straw-built shed."



LECTURE III.

THE DABCHICKS.

81. I believe that somewhere I have already observed, but permit myself, for immediate use, to repeat what I cannot but think the sagacious observation,—that the arrangement of any sort of animals must be, to say the least, imperfect, if it be founded only on the characters of their feet. And, of all creatures, one would think birds were those which, continually dispensing with the use of their feet, would require for their classification some attention also to be paid to their bodies and wings,—not to say their heads and tails. Nevertheless, the ornithological arrangement at present in vogue may suffice for most scientific persons; but in grouping birds, so that the groups may be understood and remembered by children, I must try to make them a little more generally descriptive.

82. In talking of parrots, for instance, it is only a small part of the creature's nature which is told by its scientific name of 'Scansor,' or 'Climber.' That it only clutches with its claws, and does not snatch or strike with them;—that it helps itself about with its beak, on branches, or bars of cage, in an absurd manner, as if partly imagining itself hung up in a larder, are by no means the most vital matters about the bird. Whereas, that its beak is always extremely short, and is bent down so roundly that the angriest parrot cannot peck, but only bite, if you give it a chance; that it can bite, pinch, or otherwise apply the mechanism of a pair of nut-crackers from the back of its head, with effect; that it has a little black tongue capable of much talk; above all, that it is mostly gay in plumage, often to vulgarity, and always to pertness;—all these characters should surely be represented to the apprehensive juvenile mind, in sum; and not merely the bird's climbing qualities.

83. Again, that the race of birds called in Latin 'Rasores' do, in the search for their food, usually scratch, and kick out their legs behind, living for the most part in gravelly or littery places, of which the hidden treasures are only to be discovered in that manner, seems to me no supremely interesting custom of the animal's life, but only a manner of its household, or threshold, economy. But that the tribe, on the whole, is unambitiously domestic, and never predatory; that they fly little and low, eat much of what they can pick up without trouble—and are themselves always excellent eating;—yet so exemplary in their own domestic cares and courtesies that one is ashamed to eat them except in eggs;—that their plumage is for the most part warm brown, delicately and even bewitchingly spotty;—and that, in the goodliest species, the spots become variegated, and inlaid as in a Byzantine pavement, deepening to imperial purple and azure, and lightening into luster of innumerable eyes;—all this, I hold, very clearly and positively, should be explained to children as a part of science, quite as exact, and infinitely more gracious, than that which reckons up the whole tribe of loving and luminous creatures under the feebly descriptive term of 'Scratchers.'

I will venture therefore to recommend my younger readers, in classing birds, to think of them literally from top to toe—from toe to top I should say,—foot, body, and head, studying, with the body, the wings that bear it; and with the head, what brains it can bring to bear on practical matters, and what sense on sentimental. But indeed, primarily, you have to consider whether the bird altogether may not be little more than a fat, cheerful little stomach, in a spotted waistcoat, and with legs to it. That is the main definition of a great many birds—meant to eat all day, chiefly, grubs, or grain—not at all, unless under wintry and calamitous conditions, meant to fast painfully, or be in concern about their food. Faultless in digestion—dinner lasting all day long, with the delight of social intercourse—various chirp and chatter. Flying or fluttering in a practical, not stately, manner: hopping and creeping intelligently. Sociable to man extremely, building and nestling and rustling about him,—prying and speculating, curiously watchful of him at his work, if likely to be profitable to themselves, or even sometimes in mere pitying sympathy, and wonder how such a wingless and beakless creature can do anything.[17]

[17] Compare 'Paradise of Birds,' (song to the young Roc, page 67,) and see close of lecture for notes on that book.

84. The balance of this kind of bird on its legs is a very important part of its—diagnosis; (we must have a fine word now and then!) Its action on the wing, is mere flutter or flirt, in and out of the hedge, or over it; but its manner of perch, or literally 'bien-seance,' is admirable matter of interest. So also in the birds which are on the water what these are on land; picking up anything anywhere; lazy and fortunate, mostly, themselves; fat, floating, daintiest darlings;—their balance on the water, also, and under it, in 'ducking,' a most essential part of their business and being.

85. Then, directly opposed to these, in both kinds, you have the birds which must fast long, and fly far, and watch or fight for their food. Not stomachic in profile; far from cheerful in disposition; more or less lonely in habit; or, if gregarious, out of the way of men. The balance of these on the wing, is no less essential a part of their picturing, than that of the buntings, robins, and ducks on the foot, or breast: and therefore, especially the position of the head in flying.

86. Accordingly, for complete ornithology, every bird must be drawn, as every flower for good botany, both in profile, and looking down upon it: but for the perchers, the standing profile is the most essential; and for the falcons and gulls, the flying plan,—the outline of the bird, as it would be seen looking down on it, when its wings were full-spread.

Then, in connection with these general outlines, we want systematic plan and profile of the foot and head; but since we can't have everything at once, let us say the plan of the foot, and profile of the head, quite accurately given; and for every bird consistently, and to scale.

Profile and plan in outline; then, at least the head in light and shade, from life, so as to give the expression of the eye. Fallacious, this latter, often, as an indication of character; but deeply significant of habit and power: thus the projecting, full, bead, which enables the smaller birds to see the smallest insect or grain with good in it, gives them much of their bright and often arch expression; while the flattened iris under the beetling brow of the falcons,—projecting, not in frown, but as roof, to shade the eye from interfering skylight,—gives them their apparently threatening and ominous gaze; the iris itself often wide and pale, showing as a lurid saturnine ring under the shadow of the brow plumes.

87. I speak of things that are to be: very assuredly they will be done, some day—not far off, by painters educated as gentlemen, in the strictest sense—working for love and truth, and not for lust and gold. Much has already been done by good and earnest draughtsmen, who yet had not received the higher painter's education, which would have enabled them to see the bird in the greater lights and laws of its form. It is only here and there, by Duerer, Holbein, Carpaccio, or other such men, that we get a living bird rightly drawn;[18] but we may be greatly thankful for the unspared labor, and attentive skill, with which many illustrations of ornithology have been produced within the last seventy or eighty years. Far beyond rivalship among them, stands Le Vaillant's monograph, or dualgraph, on the Birds of Paradise, and Jays: its plates, exquisitely engraved, and colored with unwearying care by hand, are insuperable in plume-texture, hue, and action,—spoiled in effect, unhappily, by the vulgar boughs for sustentation. Next, ranks the recently issued history of the birds of Lombardy; the lithographs by Herr Oscar Dressler, superb, but the coloring (chromo-lithotint) poor: and then, the self-taught, but in some qualities greatly to be respected, art of Mr. Gould. Of which, I would fain have spoken with gratitude and admiration in his lifetime; had not I known, that the qualified expressions necessary for true estimate of his published plates, would have caused him more pain, than any general praise could have counteracted or soothed. Without special criticism, and rejoicing in all the pleasure which any of my young pupils may take in his drawing,—only guarding them, once for all, against the error of supposing it exemplary as art,—I use his plates henceforward for general reference; finding also that, following Mr. Gould's practical and natural arrangement, I can at once throw together in groups, easily comprehensible by British children, all they are ever likely to see of British or Britain-visitant birds: which I find fall, with frank casting, into these following divisions, not in any important matters varying from the usual ones, and therefore less offensive, I hope, to the normal zoologist than my heresies in botany; while yet they enable me to make what I have to say about our native birds more simply presentable to young minds.[19]

[18] The Macaw in Sir Joshua's portrait of the Countess of Derby is a grand example.

[19] See the notes on classification, in the Appendix to the volume; published, together with the Preface, simultaneously with this number.

88. 1. The HAWKS come first, of course, massed under the single Latin term 'Falco,' and next them,

2. The OWLS second, also of course,—unmistakable, these two tribes, in all types of form, and ways of living.

3. The SWALLOWS I put next these, being connected with the owls by the Goatsucker, and with the falcons by their flight.

4. The PIES next, whose name has a curious double meaning, derived partly from the notion of their being painted or speckled birds; and partly from their being, beyond all others, pecking, or pickax-beaked, birds. They include, therefore, the Crows, Jays, and Woodpeckers; historically and practically a most important order of creatures to man. Next which, I take the great company of the smaller birds of the dry land, under these following more arbitrary heads.

5. The SONGSTERS. The Thrush, Lark, Blackbird, and Nightingale, and one or two choristers more. These are connected with the pheasants in their speckledness, and with the pies in pecking; while the nightingale leads down to the smaller groups of familiar birds.

6. The ROBINS, going on into the minor warblers, and the Wrens; the essential character of a Robin being that it should have some front red in its dress somewhere; and the Cross-bills being included in the class, partly because they have red in their dress, and partly because I don't know where else to put them.

7. The CREEPERS and TITS—separated chiefly on the ground of their minuteness, and subtle little tricks and graces of movement.

8. The SPARROWS, going on into Buntings and Finches.

9. The PHEASANTS (substituting this specific name for that of Scratchers).

10. The HERONS; for the most part wading and fishing creatures, but leading up to the Stork, and including any long-legged birds that run well, such as the Plovers.

11. The DABCHICKS—the subject of our present chapter.

12. The SWANS and GEESE.

13. The DUCKS.

14. The GULLS.

Of these, I take the Dabchicks first, for three sufficient reasons;—that they give us least trouble,—that they best show what I mean by broad principles of grouping,—and that they are the effective clasp, if not center, of all the series; since they are the true link between land and water birds. We will look at one or two of their leading examples, before saying more of their position in bird-society. I shall give for the heading of each article, the name which I propose for the bird in English children's schools—Dame-schools if possible; a perfectly simple Latin one, and a familiar English one. The varieties of existing nomenclature will be given in the Appendix, so far as I think them necessary to be known or remembered.

I.

MERULA FONTIUM. TORRENT-OUZEL.

89. There are very few good popular words which do not unite two or more ideas, being founded on one, and catching up others as they go along. Thus I find 'dabchick' to be a corruption of 'dip-chick,' meaning birds that only dip, and do not dive, or even duck, for any length of time: but in its broader and customary use it takes up the idea of dabbling; and, as a class-name, stands for 'dabbling-chick,' meaning a bird of small size, that neither wades, nor dives, nor runs, nor swims, nor flies, in a consistent manner; but humorously dabbles, or dips, or flutters, or trips, or plashes, or paddles, and is always doing all manner of odd and delightful things: being also very good-humored, and in consequence, though graceful, inclined to plumpness;[20] and though it never waddles, sometimes, for a minute or two, 'toddles,' and now and then looks more like a ball than a bird. For the most part, being clever, they are also brave, and would be as tame as any other chickens, if we would let them. They are mostly shore birds, living at the edge of irregularly broken water, either streams or sea; and the representative of the whole group with which we will begin is the mysterious little water-ouzel, or 'oiselle,' properly the water-blackbird,—Buffon's 'merle d'eau'—for ouzel is the classic and poetic word for the blackbird, or ouzel-cock, "so black of hue," in 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' Johnson gives it from the Saxon 'osle'; but in Chaucer it must be understood simply as the feminine of oiseau. The bird in question might, however, be more properly called, as Bewick calls it, 'water pyot,' or water magpie, for only its back and wings are black,—its head brown, and breast snow white.

[20] Or in French, 'embonpoint.'

90. And now I must, once for all, get over a difficulty in the description of birds' costume. I can always describe the neck-feathers, as such, when birds have any neck to speak of; but when, as the majority of dabchicks, they have not any,—instead of talking of 'throat-feathers' and 'stomach-feathers,' which both seem to me rather ugly words, I shall call the breast feathers the 'chemisette,' and all below them the 'bodice.'

I am now able, without incivility, to distinguish the two families of Water-ouzel. Both have white chemisettes, but the common water-ouzel (Cinclus aquaticus of Gould) has a white bodice, and the other a black one, the bird being called therefore, in ugly Greek, 'Melanogaster,' 'black-stomached.' The black bodice is Norwegian fashion—the white, English; and I find that in Switzerland there is an intermediate Robin-ouzel, with a red bodice: but the ornithologists are at variance as to his 'specific' existence. The chemisette is always white.

91. However dressed, and wherever born, the Ouzel is essentially a mountain-torrent bird, and, Bewick says, may be seen perched on a stone in the midst of a stream, in a continual dipping motion, or short curtsey often repeated, while it is watching for its food, which consists of small fishes and insects,—water insects, that is to say, caught mostly at the bottom; many-legged and shrimpy things, according to Gould's plate. The popular tradition that it can walk under the water has been denied by scientific people; but there is no doubt whatever of the fact,—see the authentic evidence of it in the delightful little monograph of the bird published by the Carlisle Naturalist's Society; but how the thing is done nobody but the ouzel knows. Its strong little feet, indeed, have plenty of grip in them, but cannot lay hold of smooth stones, and Mr. Gould himself does not solve the problem. "Some assert that it is done by clinging to the pebbles with its strong claws; others, by considerable exertion and a rapid movement of the wings. Its silky plumage is impervious to wet; and hence when the bird returns to the surface, the pearly drops which roll off into the stream are the only evidence of its recent submersion. It is, indeed, very interesting to observe this pretty bird walk down a stone, quietly descend into the water, rise again perhaps at a distance of several yards down the stream, and 'fly'[21] back to the place it had just left, to perform the same maneuver the next minute, the silence of the interval broken by its cheerful warbling song."

[21] "Wing its way" in the ornithological language. I shall take leave usually to substitute the vulgar word 'fly,' for this poetical phrase.

92. In which, you see, we have the reason for its being called 'water-blackbird,' being, I think, the only one of the dabchicks that really sings. Some of the others, (sand-pipers) pipe; and others, the stints, say 'stint' in a charming manner; but none of them sing except the oiselle. Very singularly, the black-bodiced one seems to like living near manufactories. "The specimen in the Norwich Museum," says Mr. Gould, "is the one mentioned by Mr. Lubbock, in 1845, as 'lately' shot at Hellesdon Mills; and two others are stated by the same author to have been seen at different times by trustworthy observers at Marlingford and Saxthorpe. Of more recent occurrence I may mention a male in my own collection, which was brought to me in the flesh, having been shot in November, 1855, whilst hovering over the river between the foundry bridge and the ferry. It is not a little singular that a bird so accustomed to the clear running streams of the north, and the quiet haunts of the 'silent angler,' should be found, as in this case, almost within the walls of the city, sporting over a river turbid and discolored from the neighboring factories, and with the busy noise of traffic on every side. About the same time that this bird appeared near the city, three others were observed on more than one occasion on the Earlham river, by Mr. Fountaine, of Easton, who is well acquainted with our British birds; but these suddenly disappeared, and were not seen again."

And all will disappear, and never be seen again, but in skeleton, ill-covered with camphorated rags of skin, under the present scientific dispensation; unless some kind-hearted northern squire will let them have the run and the dip of his brooks; and teach the village children to let them alone if they like to wade down to the village.

I am sixty-two, and have passed as much time out of those years by torrent sides as most people. But I have never seen a water-ouzel alive.

II.

ALLEGRETTA NYMPHAEA. LILY-OUZEL.

93. We have got so far, by help of our first example, in the etymology of our entire class, as to rest in the easily memorable root 'dab,' short for dabble, as the foundation of comprehensive nomenclature. But the earlier (if not Aryan!) root 'dip,' must be taken good heed to, also, because, as we further study the customs of aquatic chickens, we shall find that they really mass themselves under the three great heads of 'Duckers,' birds that duck their heads only, and stick up their tails in the air;—'Dippers,' birds that take real dips under, but not far down, in shallow water mostly, for things at the bottom, or else to get out of harm's way, staying down about as long as we could ourselves, if we were used to it;—and 'Divers,' who plunge like stones when they choose,—can go nobody knows how deep in the deep sea,—and swim under the water just as comfortably as upon it, and as fast, if not faster.

But although this is clearly the practical and poetical division, we can't make it a scientific one; for the dippers and dabblers are so like each other that we must take them together; and so also the duckers and divers are inseparable in some of their forms: so that, for convenience of classing, we must keep to the still more general rank I have given—dabchick, duck, and gull,—the last being essentially the aerial sea-bird, which lives on the wing.

94. But there is yet one more 'mode of motion' to be thought of, in the class we are now examining. Several of them ought really to be described, not as dipchicks, but as trip-chicks; being, as far as I can make out, little in the habit of going under water; but much in the habit of walking or tripping daintily over it, on such raft or float as they may find constructed for them by water-lily or other buoyant leaves. Of these "come and trip it as you come" chicks,—(my emendation of Milton is surely more reasonable than the emendations of commentators as a body, for we do not, any of us, like to see our mistresses "trip it as they go")—there are, I find, pictured by Mr. Gould, three 'species,' called by him, Porzana Minuta, Olivaceous Crake; Porzana Pygmaea, Baillon's Crake; and Porzana Maruetta, Spotted Crake.

Now, in the first place, I find 'Porzana' to be indeed Italian for 'water-hen,' but I can't find its derivation; and in the second place, these little birds are neither water-hens nor moor-hens, nor water-cocks nor moor-cocks; neither can I find, either in Gould, Yarrell, or Bewick, the slightest notice of their voices!—though it is only in implied depreciation of their quality, that we have any business to call them 'Crakes,' 'Croaks,' or 'Creaks.' In the third place, 'Olivaceous' is not a translation of 'Minuta,' nor 'Baillon's' of 'Pygmaea,' nor 'spotted' of 'Maruetta'; which last is another of the words that mean nothing in any language that I know of, though the French have adopted it as 'Marouette.' And in the fourth place, I can't make out any difference, either in text or picture, between Mr. Baillon's Crake, and the 'minute' one, except that the minute one is the bigger, and has fewer white marks in the center of the back.

95. For our purposes, therefore, I mean to call all the three varieties neither Crake nor Porzan, but 'Allegretta,' which will at once remind us of their motion; the larger one, nine inches long, I find called always Spotted Crake, so that shall be 'Allegretta Maculata,' Spotty Allegret; and the two little ones shall be, one, the Tiny Allegret, and the other the Starry Allegret (Allegretta Minuta, and Allegretta Stellaris); all the three varieties being generally thought of by the plain English name I have given at the head of this section, 'Lily-Ouzel' (see, in Sec. 7, page 5, the explanation of my system of dual epithet, and its limitations. I note, briefly, what may be properly considered distinctive in the three kinds.)

II.A.

ALLEGRETTA NYMPHAEA, MACULATA. SPOTTED ALLEGRET.

96. Water-Crake or 'Skitty' of Bewick,—French, 'Poule d'eau Marouette,' (we may perhaps take Marouette as euphonious for Maculata, but I wish I knew what it meant);—though so light of foot, flies heavily; and, when compelled to take wing, merely passes over the tops of the reeds to some place of security a short distance off. (Gould.) The body is "in all these Rails compressed" (Yarrell,—he means laterally thin), which enables them to make their way through dense herbage with facility. I can't find anything clear about its country, except that it 'occasionally visits' Sweden in summer, and Smyrna in winter, and that it has been found in Corfu, Sicily, Crete,—Whittlesea Mere,—and Yarley Fen;—in marshes always, wherever it is; (nothing said of its behavior on ice,) and not generally found farther north than Cumberland. Its food is rather nasty—water-slugs and the like,—but it is itself as fat as an ortolan, "almost melts in the hand." (Gould.) Its own color, brown spotted with white; "the spots on the wing coverts surrounded with black, which gives them a studded or pearly appearance." (Bewick,—he means by 'pearly,' rounded or projecting.) Hence my specific epithet. Its young are of the liveliest black, "little balls of black glistening down," beautifully put by Mr. Gould among the white water Crowfoot (Ranunculus Aquatilis), looking like little ducklings in mourning. "Its nest is made of rushes and other buoyant materials matted together, so as to float on, and rise or fall with, the ebbing or flowing of the water like a boat; and to prevent its being carried away, it is moored or fastened to a reed." (Bewick.)

II.B.

ALLEGRETTA NYMPHAEA, STELLARIS. STARRY ALLEGRET.

97. Called 'Stellaris' by Temminck.—I do not find why, but it is by much the brightest in color of the three, and may be thought of as the star of them. Gould says it is the least, also, and calls it the 'Pigmy'; but we can't keep that name without confusing it with the 'Minuta.' 'Baillon's Crake' seems the most commonly accepted title,—as the worst possible. Both this, and the more quietly toned Tiny, in Mr. Gould's delightful plates of them, have softly brown backs, exquisitely ermined by black markings at the root of each feather, following into series of small waves, like little breakers on sand. They have lovely gray chemisettes, striped gray bodices, and green bills and feet; a little orange stain at the root of the green bill, and the bright red iris of the eye have wonderful effect in warming the color of the whole bird: and with beautiful fancy Mr. Gould has put the Stellaris among yellow water-lilies to set off its gray; and a yellow butterfly with blue and red spots, and black-speckled wings (Papilio Machaon), to harmonize both. It is just as if the flower were gradually turning into the bird. Examples of the Starry Allegret have been 'obtained'—in the British Islands. It is said to be numerous, unobtained, in India, China, Japan, Persia, Greece, North Africa, Italy, and France. I have never heard of anybody's seeing it, however.

II.C.

ALLEGRETTA NYMPHAEA, MINUTA. TINY ALLEGRET.

98. 'Tiny Allegret,'—Yarrell's 'Little Crake,' (but see names in Appendix). It is a little more rosy than 'Stellaris' in the gray of its neck, passing into brown; and Mr. Gould has put it with a pink water plant, which harmonizes with it to the bird's advantage; while the tiny creature stands on the bent leaf of a reed, and scarcely bends it more! "It runs with rapidity over broken reeds, and moves gracefully, raising and displaying its tail at every step." It has so very small a tail to display, however, that I should hardly think the display was worth while. "It is very cunning, and especially noticeable for the subtlety with which it wearies the dog of the sportsman by executing a thousand evolutions with surprising celerity; whence comes the trivial name of 'kill-dog' bestowed upon it in some localities. Pursued to extremity, it casts itself into the water, swims with ease, and dives at the moment its enemy is about to seize it; or it conceals itself in a tuft of reeds or a bush, and by this means often escapes with impunity. It loves to breed among the reeds, and in long and thick grass, frequently in small companies of its own species, or of the Stellaris. The female lays her eggs on an inartificially constructed platform of decayed leaves or stalks of marsh plants, slightly elevated above the water." How elevated, I cannot find proper account,—that is to say, whether it is hung to the stems of growing reeds, or built on hillocks of soil, but the bird is always liable to have its nest overflowed by floods. The full-grown bird is dressed in an exquisite perfection of barred bodice, spotted chemisette, and waved feathers edged with gray on the back.

99. The reader will please recollect these three Allegrets as the second group of the dab- or dabble-chicks; and, while the water-ouzel is a mountain and torrent bird, these inhabit exclusively flat lands and calm water, belonging properly to temperate, inclining to warm, climates, and able to gladden for us—as their name now given implies—many scenes and places otherwise little enlivened; and to make the very gnats of them profitable to us, were we wise enough. Dainty and delightful creatures in all their ways,—voice only dubitable, but I hope not a shriek or a squeak;—and there seems to be no reason whatever why half our fen lands should not be turned into beds of white water lilies and golden ducks, with jetty ducklings, to the great comfort of English souls.[22]

[22] Compare Bishop Stanley's account of the larger tropical 'Jacana,' p. 311. "One species is often tamed, and from its being a resolute enemy to birds of prey, the inhabitants of the countries where it is found" (which be they?) "rear it as a protector for their fowls, as it not only feeds with them, but accompanies them into the fields, and brings them back in the evening!"

III.

TREPIDA STAGNARUM. LITTLE GREBE.

100. The two birds—Torrent-ouzel, and Lily-ouzel,—which we have been just describing, agree, you will observe, in delicate and singular use of their feet in the water; the torrent-ouzel holding itself mysteriously at the bottom; and the lily-ouzel, less mysteriously, but as skillfully, on the top (for I forgot to note, respecting this raft-walking, that the bird, however light, must be always careful not to tread on the edges of leaves, but in the middle, or, rather, as nearly as may be where they are set on the stalk; it would go in at once if it trod on the edges). But both the birds have the foot which is really characteristic of land, not water-birds; and especially of those land species that run well. Of the real action of the toes, either in running, or hopping, nothing is told us by the anatomists—(compare lecture on Robin, Sec. 26); but I hope before long to get at some of the facts respecting the greater flexibility of the gripping and climbing feet, and elasticity of running ones; and to draw up something like a properly graduated scale of the length of the toes in proportion to that of the body.



And, for one question, relative to this—the balance of a bird standing, not gripping—is to be thought of. Taking a typical profile of bird-form in its abstract, with beak, belly, and foot, horizontal (Fig. 12), the security of the standing, (supposing atomic weight equal through the bird's body, and the will, in the ankle, of iron,) is the same as of an inverted cone, between the dotted lines from the extremities of the foot to those of the body; and, of course, with a little grip of the foot or hind claw, the bird can be safe in almost any position it likes. Nevertheless, when the feet are as small in proportion as the Torrent-ouzel's, I greatly doubt the possibility of such a balance as Bewick has given it (Fig. 13 a). Gould's of the black-bodiced Ouzel (Fig. 13 b) is, I imagine, right. Bewick was infallible in plume texture, and expression either of the features of animals, or of any action that had meaning in it; but he was singularly careless of indifferent points in geometry or perspective; and even loses character in his water-birds, by making them always swim on the top of the water.



101. But, whatever their balance of body, or use of foot, the two birds just examined are, as I said, essentially connected with the running land birds, or broadly, the Plovers; and with the Sand-runners, or (from their cry) Sandpipers, which Mr. Gould evidently associates mentally with the Plovers, in his description of the plumage of the Dunlin; while he gives to them in his plates of that bird—the little Stint, and common Sandpiper—most subtle action with their fine feet,—thread-fine, almost, in the toes; requiring us, it seems to me, to consider them as entirely land-birds, however fond of the wave margins. But the next real water-ouzel we come to, belongs to a group with feet like little horse-chestnut leaves; each toe having its separate lobes of web. Why separated, I cannot yet make out, but the bird swims, or even dives, on occasion, with dexterity and force. These lobe-footed birds consist first of the Grebes, which are connected with fresh-water ducks; and, secondly, of the Phalaropes, which are a sort of sea-gulls. No bird which is not properly web-footed has any business to think itself either true duck or true gull; but as, both in size and habit of life, the larger grebes and phalaropes are entirely aquatic and marine, I shall take out of them into my class of dabchicks, only those which are literally dabblers in habit, and chickens in size. And of the Grebes, therefore, only the one commonly known as the Dabchick, the 'Little Grebe,' 'Colymbus Minutus' (Minute Diver), of Linnaeus. A summary word or two, first, respecting the Grebe family, will be useful.



102. Grebe, properly, I suppose, Grebe, from the French, is not in Johnson, nor do any of my books tell me what it means. I retain it, however, as being short, not ugly, and well established in two languages. We may think of it as formed from gre, and meaning 'a nice bird.' The specialities of the whole class, easily remembered, are, first, that they have chestnut-leaf feet; secondly, that their legs are serrated behind with a double row of notches—(why?); thirdly, that they have no tails; fourthly, that they have, most of them, very fine and very comic crests, tufts, tippets, and other variously applied appendages to their heads and chins, so that some are called 'crested,' some 'eared,' some 'tippeted,' and so on; but the least of them, our proper Dabchick, displays no absurdity of this sort, and I have the less scruple in distinguishing it from others. I find, further, in Stanley's classes, the Grebes placed among the short-winged birds, and made to include all the divers; but he does not say how short their wings are; and his grouping them with guillemots and puffins is entirely absurd, all their ways and looks, and abodes, being those of ducks. We can say no more of them as a family, accordingly, until we know what a duck is;—and I go on to the little pet of them, whose ways are more entirely its own.

103. Strangely, the most interesting fact (if fact it be) that it builds a floating nest, gains scarcely more than chance notice from its historians. Here is Mr. Gould's account of it: "The materials composing this raft or nest are weeds and aquatic plants carefully heaped together in a rounded form; it is very large at the base, and is so constantly added to, that a considerable portion of it becomes submerged; at the same time it is sufficiently buoyant to admit of its saucer-like hollow top being always above the surface. In this wet depression five or six eggs are laid. The bird, always most alert, is still more so now, and scarcely ever admits of a near examination of the nest-making, or of a view of the eggs. In favorable situations, however, and with the aid of a telescope, the process may be watched; and it is not a little interesting to notice with what remarkable quickness the dabchick scratches the weeds over her eggs with her feet, when she perceives herself observed, so as not to lead even to the suspicion that any were deposited on the ill-shapen floating mass. This work of an instant displays as much skill in deception as can well be imagined."

104. It is still left to question, first, what is meant by a wet depression?—does the bird actually sit in the water, and are the eggs under it? and, if not, how is the water kept out? Secondly, is the floating nest anchored, and how? Looking to other ornithologists for solution of these particulars, I find nobody else say anything about a floating nest at all. Bewick describes it as being of a large size, and composed of a very great quantity of grass and water plants, at least a foot in thickness, and so placed in the water that the female hatches her eggs amidst the continual wet in which they were first laid. Yarrell says only that it is a large flat nest made of aquatic plants; while Morris finally complicates the whole business by telling us that the nest is placed often as much as twenty or thirty yards from the water, that it is composed of short pieces of roots, reeds, rushes, and flags, and that when dry the whole naturally becomes very brittle.[23]

[23] I hear, from a friend in whose statements I have absolute confidence, that he has found the eggs of the water-hen laid on a dead sycamore leaf by the side of a shallow stream, one of the many brooks near Uxbridge.

105. While, out of my fifteen volumes of ornithology, I can obtain only this very vague account of the prettiest bird, next to the kingfisher, that haunts our English rivers, I have no doubt the most precise and accurate accounts are obtainable of the shapes of her bones and the sinuosities of her larynx; but about these I am low-minded enough not to feel the slightest curiosity. I return to Mr. Gould, therefore, to gather some pleasanter particulars; first, namely, that she has a winter and summer dress,—in winter olive gray and white, but in summer, (changing at marriage time) deep olive black, with dark chestnut chemisette. Infant dabchicks have "delicate rose-colored bills, harlequin-like markings, and rosy-white aprons." The harlequin-like markings I should call, rather, agate-like, especially on the head, where they are black and white, like an onyx. The bodies look more like a little walnut-shell, or nutmeg with wings to it, or things that are to be wings, some day.

106. Even when full-grown, the birds never fly much,—never more, says Morris, "than six or ten feet above the water, and for the most part trailing their legs in it; but either on the water or under it, every movement is characterized by the most consummate dexterity, and facile agility. The most expert waterman that sculls his skiff on the Thames or Isis, is but an humble and unskillful imitator of the dabchick. In moving straightforward (under water?), the wings are used to aid its progress, as if in the air, and in turning it has an easy gliding motion, feet and wings being used, as occasion requires, sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other. It walks but indifferently, as may readily be imagined from the position of the legs, so very far back. It is pleasant to watch the parent bird feeding her young: down she dives with a quick turn, and presently rises again with, five times out of six, a minnow, or other little fish, glittering like silver in her bill. The young rush towards the spot where the mother has come up, but she does not drop the fish into the water for them to receive until she has well shaken it about and killed it, so that it may not escape, when for the last time in its own element. I have seen a young one which had just seized, out of its turn I have no doubt, the captured prey, chased away by her, and pursued in apparent anger, as if for punishment, the following one being willingly given the next fish without any demur."

107. Mr. Gould seems to think that the dabchick likes insects and fish spawn better than fish, or at least more prudently dines upon them. "That fish are taken we have positive evidence from examples having been repeatedly picked up dead by the fishermen of the Thames, with a bull-head or miller's thumb in their throats, and by which they had evidently been choked in the act of swallowing them. That it is especially fond of insects is shown by the great activity it displays, when in captivity, in capturing house-flies and other diptera. Those who have visited Paris will probably have seen the grebes in the window of the restaurateur in the Rue de Rivoli. For years have a pair of these birds been living, apparently in the greatest enjoyment, within the glass window, attracting the admiration of all the passers-by. The extreme agility with which they sailed round their little prison, or scrambled over the half-submerged piece of rock for a fly, was very remarkable. That no bird can be more easily kept in a state of confinement is certain."

108. This question about its food is closely connected with that of its diving. So far as I understand Mr. Morris, it dives only when disturbed, and to escape,—remaining under water, however, if need be, an almost incredible time, and swimming underneath it to great distances. Here we have, if we would only think of it, the same question as that about the water-ouzel, how it keeps down; and we must now note a few general points about diving birds altogether.

It is easy to understand how the properly so-called divers can plunge with impetus to great depths, or keep themselves at the bottom by continued strokes of the webbed feet; but neither how the ouzel walks at the bottom, if it be specifically lighter than the water, nor how a bird can swim horizontally under the surface; at least it is not enough explained that the action must be always that of oblique diving, the bird regulating the stroke according to the upward pressure of the water at different depths.

109. But there are many other points needing elucidation. It is said (and beautifully insisted on, by Michelet,) that great spaces in the bones of birds that pass most of their lives in flight are filled with air: presumably the bones of the divers are made comparatively solid, or it is even conceivable—if conceptions or suppositions were of any use,—that the deep divers may take in water, to help themselves to sink. The enormous depths at which they have been caught, according to report, cannot be reached by any mere effort of strength, if the body remained as buoyant as it evidently is on the surface. The strength of the wing must, however, be enormous, for the great northern diver is described as swimming under water "as it were with the velocity of an arrow in the air" (Yarrell, vol. iii., page 431); or to keep to more measured fact, Sir William Jardine says, "I have pursued this bird in a Newhaven fishing-boat with four sturdy rowers, and notwithstanding it was kept almost constantly under water by firing as soon as it appeared, the boat could not succeed in making one yard upon it" (ibid., p. 432).

110. But this is followed by the amazing statement of Mr. Robert Dunn, p. 433, that in the act of diving it does not appear to make the least exertion, but sinks gradually under the surface, without throwing itself forward, the head being the last part that disappears. I am not fond of the word 'impossible,' but I think I am safe in saying that according to the laws of nature no buoyant body can sink merely by an act of volition; and that it must pull itself down by some hitherto unconceived action of the feet, which in this bird are immensely broad and strong, and so flat that it cannot walk with them, any more than we could with two flat boards a yard square tied to our feet; but, when it is caught on land, shoves its body along upon the ground, like a seal, by jerks. All these diving motions are executed in a more delicate but quite as wonderful way by the dabchick,—more wonderful indeed it may be said, because it has only the divided or chestnut-leaf-like foot, to strike with. We shall understand it perhaps a little better after tracing, in a future talk, the history of its relations among the smaller sea-gulls; meantime, in quitting the little dainty creature, I must plead for a daintier Latin name than it has now—'Podiceps.' No one seems to have the least idea what that means; and 'Colymbus,' diver, must be kept for the great Northern Diver and his deep-sea relatives, far removed from our little living ripple-line of the pools. I can't think of any one pretty enough; but for the present 'Trepida' may serve; and perhaps be applied, not improperly, to all the Grebes, with reference to their subtle and instant escape from any sudden danger. (See Stanley, p. 419.) "It requires all the address of a keen sportsman to get within shot," and when he does, the bird may still be too shrewd for him. "I fired at the distance of thirty yards; my gun went quick as lightning, but the grebe went quicker, and scrambling over, out of sight, came up again in a few seconds perfectly unhurt."

I think, therefore, that unless I receive some better suggestion, 'Trepida Stagnarum' may be the sufficiently intelligible Latin renaming of our easily startled favorite.

IV.

TITANIA ARCTICA. ARCTIC FAIRY.

111. I must first get quit of the confusion of names for this bird. Linnaeus, in the Fauna Suecica, p. 64, calls it 'Tringa Lobata,' but afterwards 'Northern Tringa'; and his editor, Gmelin, 'Dark Tringa.' Other people agree to call it a 'phalarope,' but some of them 'northern' phalarope, some, the 'dark' phalarope; some, the 'ashy' phalarope, some, the 'disposed to be ashy' phalarope; some, the 'red-necked' phalarope; and some, 'Mr. Williams's' phalarope; finally, Cuvier calls it a 'Lobipes,' and Mr. Gould, in English, 'red-necked phalarope.' Few people are likely to know what 'Phalarope' means,[24] and I believe nobody knows what 'Tringa' means; and as, also, nobody ever sees it, the little bird being obliged to live in Orkney, Greenland, Norway, and Lapland, out of human creatures' way, I shall myself call it the Arctic Fairy. It would come south if we would let it, but of course Mr. Bond says, "The first specimen I ever had was shot by a friend of mine in September, 1842, near Southend, Essex, where he saw the phalarope swimming on the water, like a little duck, about a mile from land; not knowing what it was, he shot it, and kindly brought it to me." Another was shot while running between the metals of the Great Eastern Railway, near the Stratford station, early in June, 1852; and on the Norfolk coast, four others have been killed during the last fifteen years; and the birds' visits, thus, satisfactorily, put a stop to. I can therefore study it only in Mr. Gould's drawing, on consulting which, I find the bird to be simply a sea dabchick,—brown stripes on the back, and all; but the webs of the feet a little finer, and in its habits it is more like the Lily-ouzel, according to the following report of Mr. St. John: "The red-necked phalarope is certainly the most beautiful little wader of my acquaintance. There were a pair of them, male and female, feeding near the loch, in a little pool which was covered with weeds of different kinds. Nothing could be more graceful than the movements of these two little birds, as they swam about in search of insects, etc. Sometimes they ran lightly on the broad leaves of the water-lily which served them for a raft, and entirely kept them out of the water. Though not exactly web-footed, the phalarope swims with the greatest ease. The attachment of these two birds to each other seemed very great: whenever in their search for food they wandered so far apart as to be hidden by the intervening weeds, the male bird stopped feeding suddenly, and, looking round, uttered a low and musical call of inquiry, which was immediately answered by the female in a different note, but perfectly expressive of her answer, which one might suppose to be to the purport that she was at hand and quite safe; on hearing her, the male immediately recommenced feeding, but at the same time making his way towards her; she also flew to meet him; they then joined company for a moment or two, and, after a few little notes of endearment, turned off again in different directions. This scene was repeated a dozen times while I was watching them. They seemed to have not the slightest fear of me, for frequently they came to within a yard of where I was sitting, and after looking up they continued catching the small water-insects, etc., on the weeds, without minding my presence in the least." What reward the birds got for this gentle behavior, we learn from the sentence following after the next two lines, containing the extremely valuable contribution to their natural history, that "on dissecting the female we found two eggs in her."

[24] The terminal 'pe' is short for pus, (pous!) and 'phalero,' from phalera, fringes—"Fringe-foot" (Morris).

112. All other accounts concur in expressing (with as much admiration as is possible to naturalists) the kindly and frank disposition of this bird; which for the rest is almost a central type of all bird power with elf gifts added: it flies like a lark, trips on water-lily leaves like a fairy, swims like a duck, and roves like a sea-gull, having been seen sixty miles from land: and, finally, though living chiefly in Lapland and Iceland, and other such northern countries, it has been seen serenely swimming and catching flies in the hot water of the geysers, in which a man could not bear his hand.

And no less harmoniously than in report of the extreme tameness, grace, and affectionateness of this bird do sportsmen agree also in the treatment and appreciation of these qualities. Thus says Mr. Salmon: "Although we shot two pairs, those that were swimming about did not take the least notice of the report of the gun, and they seemed to be much attached to each other; for when one of them flew to a short distance, the other directly followed; and while I held a wounded female in my hand, its mate came and fluttered before my face." (Compare the scene between Irene and Hector, at page 393 of the May number of Aunt Judy's Magazine.) And, again, says Mr. Wolley: "The bird is extremely tame, swimming about my india-rubber boat so near that I could almost catch it in my hand; I have seen it even, when far from its nest, struck at many times with an oar before it flew away." In its domestic habits also the creature seems as exemplary as, in its social habits, it is frank; for on the approach of danger to her nestlings, the hen uses all the careful subtleties of the most cunning land birds, "spreading her wings, and counterfeiting lameness, for the purpose of deluding the intruder; and after leading the enemy from her young, she takes wing and flies to a great height, at the same time displaying a peculiar action of the wings; then descending with great velocity, and making simultaneously a noise with her wings. On her return to her young, she uses a particular cry for the purpose of gathering them together. As soon as she has collected them, she covers them with her wings, like the domestic hen."

113. I cannot quite make out the limits of the fairy's migrations; but it is said by Morris to 'occur' in France, Holland, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. I find that one was what sportsmen call 'procured' near York, in full summer dress; and another killed at Rottingdean, swimming in a pond in the middle of the village, in the company of some ducks. At Scarborough, Louth, and Shoreham, it has also been captured or shot, and has been 'found' building nests in Sutherland: and, on the whole, it seems that here is a sort of petrel-partridge, and duckling-dove, and diving-lark, with every possible grace and faculty that bird can have, in body and soul; ready, at least in summer, to swim on our village ponds, or, wait at our railway stations, and make the wild north-eastern coasts of Scotland gay with its dancing flocks upon the foam; were it not that the idle cockneys, and pot-headed squires fresh out of Parliament, stand as it were on guard all round the island, spluttering small-shot at it, striking at it with oars, cutting it open to find how many eggs there are inside, and, in fine, sending it for refuge into the hot water of Hecla, and any manner of stormy solitude that it can still find for itself and its amber nestlings. I have never seen one, nor I suppose ever shall see, but hear of some of my friends sunning themselves at midnight about the North Cape, of whom, if any one will bring me a couple of Arctic fairies in a basket, I think I can pledge our own Squire's and Squire's lady's faith, for the pair's getting some peace, if they choose to take it, and as many water-lily leaves as they can trip upon, on the tarns of Monk-Coniston.

IV.B.

TITANIA INCONSTANS. CHANGEFUL FAIRY.

Phalaropus Fulicarius. (Coot-like Phalarope—Gould.)

114. I think the epithet 'changeful' prettier, and, until we know what a coot is like, more descriptive, than 'coot-like'; the bird having red plumage in summer, and gray in winter, while the coot is always black. It is a little less pretty and less amiable than its sister fairy; otherwise scarcely to be thought of but as a variety, both of them being distinguished from the coot, not only by color, but by their smaller size;—(they eight inches long, it sixteen)—and by the slender beaks, the coot having a thick one, half-way to a puffin's.

And here, once for all,—for I see I have taken no note yet of the beaks or bills of my dabchicks,—I will at once arrange a formula of the order of questions which it will be proper to ask, and get answered, concerning any bird, in the same order always, so that we shall never miss anything that we ought to think of. And I find these questions will naturally and easily fall into the following twelve:

1. Country, and scope of migration. 2. Food. 3. Form and flight. 4. Foot. 5. Beak and eye. 6. Voice and ear. 7. Temper. 8. Nest. 9. Eggs. 10. Brood. 11. Feathers. 12. Uses in the world.

It may be thought that I have forced—and not fallen into—my number 12, by packing the faculties of sight and hearing into by-corners. But the expression of a bird's head depends on the relation of eye to beak, as the getting of its food depends on their practical alliance of power; and the question, for instance, whether peacocks and parrots have musical ears, seems to me not properly debatable unless with due respect to the quality of their voices. It is curious, considering how much, one way or another, we are amused or pleased by the chatter and song of birds, that you will scarcely find in any ornithic manual more than a sentence, if so much, about their hearing; and I have not myself, at this moment, the least idea where a nightingale's ears are! But see Appendix, p. 122.

I retain, therefore, my dodecahedric form of catechism as sufficiently clear; and without binding myself to follow the order of it in strictness, if there be motive for discursory remark, it will certainly prevent my leaving any bird insufficiently distinguished, and enable me to arrange the collected statements about it in the most easily compared order.

115. We will try it at once on this second variety of the Titania, of which I find nothing of much interest in my books, and have nothing discursive myself to say.

1. Country. Arctic mostly; seen off Greenland, in lat. 68 deg., swimming among icebergs three or four miles from shore. Abundant in Siberia, and as far south as the Caspian. Migratory in Europe as far as Italy, yet always rare. (Do a few only, more intelligently curious than the rest, or for the sake of their health, travel?)

2. Food. Small thin-skinned crustacea, and aquatic surface-insects.

3. Form and flight. Stout, for a sea-bird; and they don't care to fly, preferring to swim out of danger. Body 7 to 8 inches long; wings, from carpal joint to end, 4-3/4,—say 5. These quarters of inches, are absurd pretenses to generalize what varies in every bird. 8 inches long, by 10 across the wings open, is near enough. In future, the brief notification 8 x 10, 5 x 7, or the like, will enough express a bird's inches, unless it possess decorative appendage of tail, which must be noted separately.

4. Foot. Chestnut-leaved in front toes, the lobes slightly serrated on the edges. Hind toe without membrane. Color of foot, always black.

5. Beak. Long, slender, straight. (How long? Drawn as about a fifth of the bird's length—say an inch, or a little over.) Upper mandible slightly curved down at the point. In Titania arctica, the beak is longer and more slender.

6. Voice. A sharp, short cry, not conceived by me enough to spell any likeness of it.

7. Temper. Gentle, passing into stupid, (it seems to me); one, in meditative travel, lets itself be knocked down by a gardener with his spade.

8. Nest. Little said of it, the bird breeding chiefly in the North. Among marshes, it is of weeds and grass; but among icebergs, of what?

9. Eggs. Pear-shape; narrow ends together in nest; never more than four.

10. Brood. No account of.

11. Feathers. Mostly gray, passing into brown in summer, varied with white on margin. Reddish chestnut or bay bodice—well oiled or varnished.

12. Uses. Fortunately, at present, unknown.

V.

RALLUS AQUATICUS. WATER-RAIL.

116. Thus far, we have got for representatives of our dabchick group, eight species of little birds—namely, two Torrent-ouzels, three Lily-ouzels, one Grebe, and two Titanias. And these we associate, observe, not for any specialty of feature in them, but for common character, habit, and size; so that, if perchance a child playing by any stream, or on the sea-sands, perceives a companionable bird dabbling in an equally childish and pleasant manner, he may not have to look through half a dozen volumes of ornithology to find it; but may be pretty sure it has been one of these eight. And having once fastened the characters of these well in his mind, he may with ease remember that the little grebe is the least of a family of chestnut-leaf-footed, and sharp-billed creatures, which yet in size, color, and diving power, go necessarily among Ducks, and cannot be classed with Dabblers; though it must be always as distinctly kept in mind that a duck proper has a flat beak, and a fully webbed foot.

Again, he may recollect that with these leaf-footed ducks of the calm and fresh waters, must be associated the leaf-footed or fringe-footed ducks of the sea;—'phalaropes,' which by their short wings connect themselves with many clumsy marine creatures, on their way to become seals instead of birds; and that I have kept the two little Titanias out of this class, not merely for their niceness, but because they are not short-winged in any vulgar degree, but seem to have wings about as long as a sandpiper's;—and indeed I had put the purple sandpiper, Arquatella maritima, with them, in my own folio; only as the Arquatella's feet are not chestnutty, she had better go with her own kind in our notes on them.

117. But there are yet two birds, which I think well to put with our eight dabchicks, though they are much larger than any of them,—partly because of their disposition, and partly because of their plumage,—the water-rail, and water-hen. Modern science, with instinctive horror of all that is pretty to see, or easy to remember, entirely rejects the plumage, as any element or noticeable condition of bird-kinds; nor have I ever yet tried to make it one myself; yet there are certain qualities of downiness in ducks, fluffiness in owls, spottiness in thrushes, patchiness in pies, bronzed or rusty luster in cocks, and pearly iridescence in doves, which I believe may be aptly brought into connection with other defining characters; and when we find an entirely similar disposition of plumage, and nearly the same form, in two birds, I do not think that mere difference in size should far separate them.

Bewick, accordingly, calls the water-rail the 'Brook-ouzel,' and puts it between the little crake and the water-ouzel; but he does not say a word of its living by brooks,—only 'in low wet places.' Buffon, however, takes it with the land-rail; Gould and Yarrell put it between the little crake and water-hen. Gould's description of it is by no means clear to me:—he first says it is, in action, as much "like a rat as a bird;" then that it "bounds like a ball," (before the nose of the spaniel); and lastly, in the next sentence, speaks of it as "this lath-like bird"! It is as large as a bantam, but can run, like the Allegretta, on floating leaves; itself, weighing about four ounces and a half (Bewick), and rarely uses the wing, flying very slowly. I imagine the 'lath-like' must mean, like the more frequent epithet 'compressed,' that the bird's body is vertically thin, so as to go easily between close reeds.

118. We will try our twelve questions again.

1. Country. Equally numerous in every part of Europe, in Africa, India, China, and Japan; yet hardly anybody seems to have seen it. Living, however, "near the perennial fountains" (wherever those may be;—it sounds like the garden of Eden!) "during the greater part of the winter, the birds pass Malta in spring and autumn, and have been seen fifty leagues at sea off the coast of Portugal" (Buffon); but where coming from, or going to, is not told. Tunis is the most southerly place named by Yarrell.

2. Food. Anything small enough to be swallowed, that lives in mud or water.

3. Form and flight. I am puzzled, as aforesaid, between its likeness to a ball, and a lath. Flies heavily and unwillingly, hanging its legs down.

4. Foot. Long-toed and flexible.

5. Beak. Sharp and strong, some inch and a half long, showing distinctly the cimeter-curve of a gull's, near the point.

6. Voice. No account of.

7. Temper. Quite easily tamable, though naturally shy. Feeds out of the hand in a day or two, if fed regularly in confinement.

8. Nest. "Slight, of leaves and strips of flags" (Gould); "of sedge and grass, rarely found," (Yarrell). Size not told.

9. Eggs. Eight or nine! cream-white, with rosy yolk!! rather larger than a blackbird's!!!

10. Brood. Velvet black, with white bills; hunting with the utmost activity from the minute they are hatched.

11. Feathers. Brown on the back, a beautiful warm ash gray on the breast, and under the wings transverse stripes of very dark gray and white. The disposition of pattern is almost exactly the same as in the Allegretta.

12. Uses. By many thought delicious eating. (Bewick.) The fact is, or seems to me, that this entire group of marsh birds is meant to become to us the domestic poultry of marshy land; and I imagine that by proper irrigation and care, many districts of otherwise useless bog and sand, might be made more profitable to us than many fishing-grounds.

VI.

PULLA AQUATICA. WATER-HEN.

(Gallinula Chloropus.—Pennant, Bewick, Gould, and Yarrell.)

119. 'Green-footed little cock, or hen,' that is to say, in English; only observe, if you call the Fringe-foot a Phalarope, you ought in consistency to call the Green-foot a Chlorope. Their feet are not only notable for greenness, but for size: they are very ugly, having the awkward and ill-used look of the feet of Scratchers, while a trace of beginning membrane connects them with the fringe-foots.

Their proper name would be Marsh-cock, which would enough distinguish them from the true Moor-cock or Black-cock. 'Moat-cock' would be prettier, and characteristic; for in the old English days they used to live much in the moats of manor-houses; mine is the name nearest to the familiar one; only note there is no proper feminine of 'pullus,' and I use the adjective 'pulla' to express the dark color.

It is a dark-brown bird, according to the colored pictures—iron gray, Buffon says, with white stripes of little order on the bodice, clumsy feet and bill, but makes up for all ungainliness by its gentle and intelligent mind; and seems meant for a useful possession to mankind all over the world, for it lives in Siberia and New Zealand; in Senegal and Jamaica; in Scotland, Switzerland, and Prussia; in Corfu, Crete, and Trebizond; in Canada, and at the Cape. I find no account of its migrations, and one would think that a bird which usually flies "dip, dip, dipping with its toes, and leaving a track along the water like that of a stone at 'ducks and drakes'" (Yarrell), would not willingly adventure itself on the Atlantic. It must have a kind of human facility in adapting itself to climate, as it has human domesticity of temper, with curious fineness of sagacity and sympathies in taste. A family of them, petted by a clergyman's wife, were constantly adding materials to their nest, and "made real havoc in the flower-garden,—for though straw and leaves are their chief ingredients, they seem to have an eye for beauty, and the old hen has been seen surrounded with a brilliant wreath of scarlet anemones." Thus Bishop Stanley, whose account of the bird is full of interesting particulars. This aesthetic water-hen, with her husband, lived at Cheadle, in Staffordshire, in the rectory moat, for several seasons, "always however leaving it in the spring," (for Scotland, supposably?): being constantly fed, the pair became quite tame, built their nest in a thorn-bush covered with ivy which had fallen into the water; and "when the young are a few days old, the old ones bring them up close to the drawing-room window, where they are regularly fed with wheat; and, as the lady of the house pays them the greatest attention, they have learned to look up to her as their natural protectress and friend; so much so, that one bird in particular, which was much persecuted by the rest, would, when attacked, fly to her for refuge; and whenever she calls, the whole flock, as tame as barn-door fowls, quit the water, and assemble round her, to the number of seventeen. (November, 1833.)

120. "They have also made other friends in the dogs belonging to the family, approaching them without fear, though hurrying off with great alarm on the appearance of a strange dog.

"The position of the water, together with the familiarity of these birds, has afforded many interesting particulars respecting their habits.

"They have three broods in a season—the first early in April; and they begin to lay again when the first hatch is about a fortnight old. They lay eight or nine eggs, and sit about three weeks,—the cock alternately with the hen. The nest in the thorn-bush is placed usually so high above the surface of the water, they cannot climb into it again; but, as a substitute, within an hour after they leave the nest, the cock bird builds a larger and more roomy nest for them, with sedges, at the water's edge, which they can enter or retire from at pleasure. For about a month they are fed by the old birds, but soon become very active in taking flies and water-insects. Immediately on the second hatch coming out, the young ones of the first hatch assist the old ones in feeding and hovering over them, leading them out in detached parties, and making additional nests for them, similar to their own, on the brink of the moat.

"But it is not only in their instinctive attachments and habits that they merit notice; the following anecdote proves that they are gifted with a sense of observation approaching to something very like reasoning faculties.

"At a gentleman's house in Staffordshire, the pheasants are fed out of one of those boxes described in page 287, the lid of which rises with the pressure of the pheasant standing on the rail in front of the box. A water-hen observing this, went and stood upon the rail as soon as the pheasant had quitted it; but the weight of the bird being insufficient to raise the lid of the box, so as to enable it to get at the corn, the water-hen kept jumping on the rail to give additional impetus to its weight: this partially succeeded, but not to the satisfaction of the sagacious bird. Accordingly it went off, and soon returning with a bird of its own species, the united weight of the two had the desired effect, and the successful pair enjoyed the benefit of their ingenuity.

"We can vouch for the truth of this singular instance of penetration, on the authority of the owner of the place where it occurred, and who witnessed the fact."

121. But although in these sagacities, and teachablenesses, the bird has much in common with land poultry, it seems not a link between these and water-fowl; but to be properly placed by the ornithologists between the rail and the coot: this latter being the largest of the fringefoots, singularly dark in color, and called 'fulica' (sooty), or, with insistence, 'fulica atra' (black sooty), or even 'fulica aterrima' (blackest sooty). 'Coot' is said by Johnson to be Dutch; and that it became 'cotee' in French; but I cannot find cotee in my French dictionary. In the meantime, putting the coot and water-hen aside for future better knowledge, we may be content with the pentagonal group of our dabchicks—passing at each angle into another tribe, thus,—(if people must classify, they at least should also map). Take the Ouzel, Allegret, Grebe, Fairy, and Rail, and, only giving the Fairy her Latin name, write their fourpenny-worth of initial letters (groat) round a pentagon set on its base, putting the Ouzel at the top angle,—so. Then, the Ouzels pass up into Blackbirds, the Rails to the left into Woodcocks, the Allegrets to the right into Plovers, the Grebes, down left, into Ducks, and the Titanias, down right, into Gulls. And there's a bit of pentagonal Darwinism for you, if you like it, and learn it, which will be really good for something in the end, or the five ends.

122. And for the bliss of classification pure, with no ends of any sort or any number, referring my reader to the works of ornithologists in general, and for what small portion of them he may afterwards care to consult, to my Appendix, I will end this lecture, and this volume, with the refreshment for us of a piece of perfect English and exquisite wit, falling into verse,—the Chorus of the Birds, in Mr. Courthope's Paradise of them,—a book lovely, and often faultless, in most of its execution, but little skilled or attractive in plan, and too thoughtful to be understood without such notes as a good author will not write on his own work; partly because he has not time, and partly because he always feels that if people won't look for his meaning, they should not be told it. My own special function, on the contrary, is, and always has been, that of the Interpreter only, in the 'Pilgrim's Progress;' and I trust that Mr. Courthope will therefore forgive my arranging his long cadence of continuous line so as to come symmetrically into my own page, (thus also enforcing, for the inattentive, the rhymes which he is too easily proud to insist on,) and my division of the whole chorus into equal strophe and antistrophe of six lines each, in which, counting from the last line of the stanza, the reader can easily catch the word to which my note refers.

123. We wish to declare, How the birds of the air All high institutions designed, And, holding in awe Art, Science, and Law, Delivered the same to mankind. 6

To begin with; of old Man went naked, and cold, Whenever it pelted or froze, Till we showed him how feathers Were proof against weathers, With that, he bethought him of hose. 12

And next, it was plain, That he, in the rain, Was forced to sit dripping and blind, While the Reed-warbler swung In a nest, with her young Deep sheltered, and warm, from the wind. 18

So our homes in the boughs Made him think of the House; And the Swallow, to help him invent, Revealed the best way To economize clay, And bricks to combine with cement. 24

The knowledge withal Of the Carpenter's awl, Is drawn from the Nuthatch's bill; And the Sand-Martin's pains In the hazel-clad lanes Instructed the Mason to drill. 30

Is there one of the Arts, More dear to men's hearts? To the bird's inspiration they owe it; For the Nightingale first Sweet music rehearsed, Prima-Donna, Composer, and Poet. 36

The Owl's dark retreats Showed sages the sweets Of brooding, to spin, or unravel Fine webs in one's brain, Philosophical—vain; The Swallows,—the pleasures of travel. 42

Who chirped in such strain Of Greece, Italy, Spain And Egypt, that men, when they heard, Were mad to fly forth, From their nests in the North, And follow—the tail of the Bird. 48

Besides, it is true, To our wisdom is due The knowledge of Sciences all; And chiefly, those rare Metaphysics of Air Men 'Meteorology' call, 54

And men, in their words, Acknowledge the Birds' Erudition in weather and star; For they say, "'Twill be dry,— The swallow is high," Or, "Rain, for the Chough is afar." 60

'Twas the Rooks who taught men Vast pamphlets to pen Upon social compact and law, And Parliaments hold, As themselves did of old, Exclaiming 'Hear, Hear,' for 'Caw, Caw.' 66

And whence arose Love? Go, ask of the Dove, Or behold how the Titmouse, unresting, Still early and late Ever sings by his mate, To lighten her labors of nesting. 72

Their bonds never gall, Though the leaves shoot, and fall, And the seasons roll round in their course, For their marriage, each year, Grows more lovely and dear; And they know not decrees of Divorce. 78

That these things are truth We have learned from our youth, For our hearts to our customs incline, As the rivers that roll From the fount of our soul, Immortal, unchanging, divine. 84

Man, simple and old, In his ages of gold, Derived from our teaching true light, And deemed it his praise In his ancestors' ways To govern his footsteps aright. 90

But the fountain of woes, Philosophy, rose; And, what between reason and whim, He has splintered our rules Into sections and schools, So the world is made bitter, for him. 96

But the birds, since on earth They discovered the worth Of their souls, and resolved with a vow No custom to change, For a new, or a strange, Have attained unto Paradise, now. 102

Line 9. PELTED, said of hail, not rain. Felt by nakedness, in a more severe manner than mere rain.

11. 'WEATHERS,' i.e., both weathers—hail and cold: the armor of the feathers against hail; the down of them against cold. See account of Feather-mail in 'Laws of Fesole,' chap, vi., p. 53, with the first and fifth plates, and figure 15.

15. BLIND. By the beating of the rain in his face. In hail, there is real danger and bruising, if the hail be worth calling so, for the whole body; while in rain, if it be rain also worth calling rain, the great plague is the beating and drenching in the face.

16. SWUNG. Opposed to 'sit' in previous line. The human creature, though it sate steady on this unshakable earth, had no house over its head. The bird, that lived on the tremblingest and weakest of bending things, had her nest on it, in which even her infinitely tender brood were deep sheltered and warm, from the wind. It is impossible to find a lovelier instance of pure poetical antithesis.

20. HOUSE. Again antithetic to the perfect word 'Home' in the line before. A house is exactly, and only, half-way to a 'home.' Man had not yet got so far as even that! and had lost, the chorus satirically imply, even the power of getting the other half, ever, since his "She gave me of the tree."

24. BRICKS. The first bad inversion permitted, for "to combine bricks with cement." In my Swallow lecture I had no time to go into the question of her building materials; the point is, however, touched upon in the Appendix (pp. 110, 112, and note).

30. 'DRILL,' for 'quarry out,' 'tunnel,' etc., the best general term available.

36. COMPOSER of the music; POET of the meaning.

Compare, and think over, the Bullfinch's nest, etc., Sec. 48 to 61 of 'Eagle's Nest.'

In modern music the meaning is, I believe, by the reputed masters omitted.

39. To SPIN, or unravel. Synthesis and analysis, in the vulgar Greek slang.

46. MAD. Compare Byron of the English in his day. "A parcel of staring boobies who go about gaping and wishing to be at once cheap and magnificent. A man is a fool now, who travels in France or Italy, till that tribe of wretches be swept home again. In two or three years, the first rush will be over, and the Continent will be roomy and agreeable." (Life, vol. ii., p. 319.) For sketches of the English of seventeen years later, at the same spots (Wengern Alp and Interlachen), see, if you can see, in any library, public or private, at Geneva, Topffer's 'Excursions dans les Alpes, 1832.' Douzieme, Treizieme, and Quatorzieme Journee.

48. THE TAIL. Mr. Courthope does not condescend to italicize his pun; but a swallow-tailed and adder-tongued pun like this must be paused upon. Compare Mr. Murray's Tale of the Town of Lucca, to be seen between the arrival of one train and the departure of the next,—nothing there but twelve churches and a cathedral,—mostly of the tenth to thirteenth century.

60. AFAR. I did not know of this weather sign; nor, I suppose, did the Duke of Hamilton's keeper, who shot the last pair of Choughs on Arran in 1863. ('Birds of the West of Scotland,' p. 165.) I trust the climate has wept for them; certainly our Coniston clouds grow heavier, in these last years.

63. SOCIAL. Rightly sung by the Birds in three syllables; but the lagging of the previous line (probably intentional, but not pleasant,) makes the lightness of this one a little dangerous for a clumsy reader. The 'i-al' of 'social' does not fill the line as two full short syllables, else the preceding word should have been written 'on,' not 'upon.' The five syllables, rightly given, just take the time of two iambs; but there are readers rude enough to accent the 'on' of upon, and take 'social' for two short syllables.

64. HOLD. Short for 'to hold'—but it is a licentious construction, so also, in next line, 'themselves' for 'they themselves.' The stanza is on the whole the worst in the poem, its irony and essential force being much dimmed by obscure expression, and even slightly staggering continuity of thought. The Rooks may be properly supposed to have taught men to dispute, but not to write. The Swallow teaches building, literally, and the Owl moping, literally; but the Rook does not teach pamphleteering literally. And the 'of old' is redundant, for rhyme's sake, since Rooks hold parliaments now as much as ever they did.

76. EACH YEAR. I doubt the fact; and too sadly suspect that birds take different mates. What a question to have to ask at this time of day and year!

82. RIVERS. Read slowly. The 'customs' are rivers that 'go on forever' flowing from the fount of the soul. The Heart drinks of them, as of waterbrooks.

92. PHILOSOPHY. The author should at least have given a note or two to explain the sense in which he uses words so wide as this. The philosophy which begins in pride, and concludes in malice, is indeed a fountain—though not the fountain—of woes, to mankind. But true philosophy such as Fenelon's or Sir Thomas More's, is a well of peace.

98. WORTH. Again, it is not clearly told us what the author means by the worth of a bird's soul, nor how the birds learned it. The reader is left to discern, and collect for himself—with patience such as not one in a thousand now-a-days possesses, the opposition between the "fount of our soul" (line 83) and fountain of philosophy.

124. I could willingly enlarge on these last two stanzas, but think my duty will be better done to the poet if I quote, for conclusion, two lighter pieces of his verse, which will require no comment, and are closer to our present purpose. The first,—the lament of the French Cook in purgatory,—has, for once, a note by the author, giving M. Soyer's authority for the items of the great dish,—"symbol of philanthropy, served at York during the great commemorative banquet after the first exhibition." The commemorative soul of the tormented Chef—always making a dish like it, of which nobody ever eats—sings thus:—

"Do you veesh To hear before you taste, of de hundred-guinea deesh? Has it not been sung by every knife and fork, 'L'extravagance culinaire a l'Alderman,' at York? Vy, ven I came here, eighteen Octobers seence, I dis deesh was making for your Royal Preence, Ven half de leeving world, cooking all de others, Swore an oath hereafter, to be men and brothers. All de leetle Songsters in de voods dat build, Hopped into the kitchen asking to be kill'd; All who in de open furrows find de seeds, Or de mountain berries, all de farmyard breeds,— Ha—I see de knife, vile de deesh it shapens, Vith les petits noix, of four-and-twenty capons, Dere vere dindons, fatted poulets, fowls in plenty, Five times nine of partridges, and of pheasants twenty; Ten grouse, that should have had as many covers, All in dis one deesh, with six preety plovers, Forty woodcocks, plump, and heavy in the scales, Pigeons dree good dozens, six-and-dirty quails, Ortulans, ma foi, and a century of snipes, But de preetiest of dem all was twice tree dozen pipes Of de melodious larks, vich each did clap the ving, And veeshed de pie vas open, dat dey all might sing!"

125. There are stiff bits of prosody in these verses,—one or two, indeed, quite unmanageable,—but we must remember that French meter will not read into ours. The last piece I will give flows very differently. It is in express imitation of Scott—but no nobler model could be chosen; and how much better for minor poets sometimes to write in another's manner, than always to imitate their own.

This chant is sung by the soul of the Francesca of the Bird-ordained purgatory; whose torment is to be dressed only in falling snow, each flake striking cold to her heart as it falls,—but such lace investiture costing, not a cruel price per yard in souls of women, nor a mortal price in souls of birds.

Her 'snow-mantled shadow' sings:

"Alas, my heart! No grief so great As thinking on a happy state In misery. Ah, dear is power To female hearts! Oh, blissful hour When Blanche and Flavia, joined with me, Tri-feminine Directory, Dispensed in latitudes below The laws of flounce and furbelow; And held on bird and beast debate, What lives should die to serve our state! We changed our statutes with the moon, And oft in January or June, At deep midnight, we would prescribe Some furry kind, or feathered tribe. At morn, we sent the mandate forth; Then rose the hunters of the North: And all the trappers of the West Bowed at our feminine behest. Died every seal that dared to rise To his round air-hole in the ice; Died each Siberian fox and hare And ermine trapt in snow-built snare. For us the English fowler set The ambush of his whirling net; And by green Rother's reedy side The blue kingfisher flashed and died. His life for us the seamew gave High upon Orkney's lonely wave; Nor was our queenly power unknown In Iceland or by Amazon; For where the brown duck stripped her breast For her dear eggs and windy nest, Three times her bitter spoil was won For woman; and when all was done, She called her snow-white piteous drake, Who plucked his bosom for our sake."

126. "See 'Hartwig's Polar World' for the manner of taking Eiderdown."—Once more, we have thus much of author's note, but edition and page not specified, which, however, I am fortunately able to supply. Mr. Hartwig's miscellany being a favorite—what can I call it, sand-hill?—of my own, out of which every now and then, in a rasorial manner, I can scratch some savory or useful contents;—one or two, it may be remembered, I collected for the behoof of the Bishop of Manchester, on this very subject, (Contemporary Review, Feb. 1880); and some of Mr. Hartwig's half-sandy, half-soppy, political opinions, are offered to the consideration of the British workman in the last extant number of 'Fors.' Touching eider ducks, I find in his fifth chapter—on Iceland—he quotes the following account, by Mr. Shepherd, of the shore of the island of 'Isafjardarjup'—a word which seems to contain in itself an introduction to Icelandic literature:—

127. "The ducks and their nests were everywhere, in a manner that was quite alarming. Great brown ducks sat upon their nests in masses, and at every step started up from under our feet. It was with difficulty that we avoided treading on some of the nests. The island being but three-quarters of a mile in width, the opposite shore was soon reached. On the coast was a wall built of large stones, just above the high-water level, about three feet in height, and of considerable thickness. At the bottom, on both sides of it, alternate stones had been left out, so as to form a series of square compartments for the ducks to make their nests in. Almost every compartment was occupied; and, as we walked along the shore, a long line of ducks flew out one after another. The surface of the water also was perfectly white with drakes, who welcomed their brown wives with loud and clamorous cooing. When we arrived at the farmhouse, we were cordially welcomed by its mistress. The house itself was a great marvel. The earthen wall that surrounded it and the window embrasures were occupied by ducks. On the ground, the house was fringed with ducks. On the turf-slopes of the roof we could see ducks; and a duck sat in the scraper.

"A grassy bank close by had been cut into square patches like a chess-board, (a square of turf of about eighteen inches being removed, and a hollow made,) and all were filled with ducks. A windmill was infested, and so were all the out-houses, mounds, rocks, and crevices. The ducks were everywhere. Many of them were so tame that we could stroke them on their nests; and the good lady told us that there was scarcely a duck on the island which would not allow her to take its eggs without flight or fear."

128. But upon the back of the canvas, as it were, of this pleasant picture—on the back of the leaf, in his book, p. 65,—this description being given in p. 66,—Doctor Hartwig tells us, in his own peculiar soppy and sandy way—half tearful, half Dryasdusty, (or may not we say—it sounds more Icelandic—'Dry-as-sawdusty,') these less cheerful facts. "The eiderdown is easily collected, as the birds are quite tame. The female having laid five or six pale greenish-olive eggs, in a nest thickly lined with her beautiful down, the collectors, after carefully removing the bird, rob the nest of its contents; after which they replace her. She then begins to lay afresh—though this time only three or four eggs,—and again has recourse to the down on her body. But her greedy persecutors once more rifle her nest, and oblige her to line it for the third time. Now, however, her own stock of down is exhausted, and with a plaintive voice she calls her mate to her assistance, who willingly plucks the soft feathers from his breast to supply the deficiency. If the cruel robbery be again repeated, which in former times was frequently the case, the poor eider-duck abandons the spot, never to return, and seeks for a new home where she may indulge her maternal instinct undisturbed by the avarice of man."

129. Now, as I have above told you, these two statements are given on the two sides of the same leaf; and the reader must make what he may of them. Setting the best of my own poor wits at them, it seems to me that the merciless abstraction of down is indeed the usual custom of the inhabitants and visitors; but that the 'good lady,' referred to by Mr. Shepherd, manages things differently; and in consequence we are presently farther told of her, (bottom of p. 65,) that "when she first became possessor of the island, the produce of down from the ducks was not more than fifteen pounds weight in the year; but under her careful nurture of twenty years it had risen to nearly one hundred pounds annually. It requires about one pound and a half to make a coverlet for a single bed, and the down is worth from twelve to fifteen shillings per pound. Most of the eggs are taken and pickled for winter consumption, one or two only being left to hatch."

But here, again, pulverulent Dr. Hartwig leaves us untold who 'consumes' all these pickled eggs of the cooing and downy-breasted creatures; (you observe, in passing, that an eider-duck coos instead of quacking, and must be a sort of Sea-Dove,) or what addition their price makes to the good old lady's feather-nesting income of, as I calculate it, sixty to seventy-five pounds a year,—all her twenty years of skill and humanity and moderate plucking having got no farther than that. And not feeling myself able, on these imperfect data, to offer any recommendations to the Icelandic government touching the duck trade, I must end my present chapter with a rough generalization of results. For a beginning of which, the time having too clearly and sadly come for me, as I have said in my preface, to knit up, as far as I may, the loose threads and straws of my raveled life's work, I reprint in this place the second paragraph of the chapter on Vital Beauty in the second volume of 'Modern Painters,' premising, however, some few necessary words.