some peculiarity fitted for its own situation. Ducks, for example, and other water-fowl, have their breasts thickly covered with down, so that they may receive no injury from being much in the water. They are also web footed, for the purpose of swimming. 12. Some, such as the heron, have long legs for wading in marshes and pools, and necks proportionably long for picking up their food. Others, again, such as swans, have short legs, with webbed feet, for swimming easily, but still have long necks to gather up their food from below the water. 13. Woodpeckers, which feed on insects in the rotten parts of trees, have short, strong legs, with four claws, two standing out forwards and two backwards, that they may climb and take fast hold of the trunks of the trees. They have a sharp beak, by which they pierce the wood, and are provided with a tongue which they can shoot out to a great length, and which ends in a sharp bony point, barbed somewhat like a fish-hook, so as to pierce and keep fast the insects on which the bird feeds. 14. Swallows are so formed as not only to fly with great swiftness, but to wind and shift about quickly in the air; by which means, together with the wideness of their mouths, they are enabled to catch the insects flying about, which are their principal food. The pelican, which feeds on fish, has a large bag or net at the lower part of its beak, by which it catches the fish in sufficient abundance for the supply of its wants. 15. These are some instances of the care which Providence employs in furnishing those animals with the means of safety and subsistence. How pleasant is the thought that we are under the protection of the same great Being, whose care is so bountifully extended to the fowls of heaven, and without whose permission not even a sparrow falls to the ground. XXIV.-A TOUCHING PLEA FOR BIRDS. Extract from a letter to a noted "sportsman." 1. I assume that you will not deny the postulate that all living creatures are endowed with the right to liveso long as they do not, by reason of their acts or hurtful presence, forfeit that right—unless necessary to the preservation of other life. To do otherwise would be to question divine wisdom and authority. 2. Now let us suppose a case. It is that of a bird, which has already been captured by your artifice or skill. It is not only harmless, but by reason of its beauty, innocence and helplessness, appeals most touchingly to your pity, justice and humanity. 3. You are a practical marksman, and you require, perhaps, recreation, or demand relief from wasting ennui. The day is fine; the fields and groves are melodious with the songs of happy feathered creatures. 4. Suddenly you are possessed of a strange desire to disfigure the scene which lies like a dream of paradise before you; you feel a strange necessity to kill something, and you fix upon the hapless little bird within your power to gratify that desire, and to meet the demands of that necessity. 5. You are not alone. Friends, and admirers of your accuracy of aim, are with you-among them fair women are seen! Your unresisting captured bird is placed in a trap, and the life which God gave to make us better and happier, for our profit and support, awaits its unrequired sacrifice to gratify your passion. 6. Now let us imagine that this bird is suddenly endowed with articulate speech: "I am wholly in your power," it says, "but you will not pretend that I ever harmed you, or that there exists any natural or legitimate reason for my destruction. 7. "The sphere in which I move was assigned me by the same All-wise Being who made you, and who so bountifully endowed you with reason and wealth to enable you to fill the sphere He assigned to you. 8. "I was betrayed into captivity while seeking food for my little helpless family, who, on account of my captivity, have died of starvation; you now seek to immolate me upon the blood-stained altar of inglorious rivalry. By crushing my delicate form, and tearing away my limbs, what will you gain that a senseless target would not give? 9. "If, however, my little body, so cunningly and so mysteriously contrived by our common Creator, be necessary to your reasonable benefit-if the brief existence which it inherits be required for any purpose which an enlightened humanity will not condemn,- take it, it is yours; but offend not its Author, nor offend the culti vated spirit of your race by a deed which your own conscience, on reflection, will characterize, but which I, in pity for you, refrain from doing." 10. Thus, I say, might the unoffending little creatures address you; and what answer could you make? None, absolutely none; nor could the combined intellect and learning of the world controvert the argument of the tiny pleader awaiting your irresistible fiat. That the taking of life is a required necessity of our civilization, I regretfully admit; all I urge is, that it be rendered as just and merciful as it is necessary. HENRY BERGH. (Adapted.) XXV. SOWING. 1. Are we sowing seeds of kindness? They shall ripen into wrong. Are we sowing seeds of honor? They shall bring forth golden grain; 2. We can never be too careful What the seed our hands shall sow; Hate from hate is sure to grow. Reaping, we its fruits must see. One pound of gold may be made into a wire that would extend around the globe. So one good deed may be felt through all time, and cast its influence into eternity. Though done in the first flush of youth, it may gild the last of a long life, and form the brightest and most glorious spot in it. XXVI. THE WORLD WE LIVE IN. 1. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: This is a right pleasant world to live in. If you or I had been consulted as to which of all the stars we would choose to walk upon, we could not have done a wiser thing than to select this. I have always been glad that I got aboard this planet. 2. The best color that I can think of for the sky is blue, for the foliage, green; for the water, crystalline flash. The mountains are just high enough, the flowers sufficiently aromatic, the earth right for solidity and growth. The human face is admirably adapted for its work-sunshine in its smile, tempest in its frown. Two eyes, one more than absolutely necessary, so that if one is put out, we still can look upon the sunrise and the faces of our friends. 3. One nose, which is quite sufficient for those who walk among so many city nuisances, being an organ of two stops, and adding dignity to the human face, whether it have the graceful arch of the Roman, or turn up towards the heavens with celestial aspirations in the shape of a pug, or wavering up and down, now as if it would aspire, now as if it would descend, until suddenly it shies off in an unexpected direction, illustrating the proverb that it is a long lane which has no turn. People are disposed, I see, to laugh about the nose, but I think that it is nothing to be sneezed at. 4. Standing before the grandest architectural achievements, critics have differences of opinion; but where is the man who would criticise the arch of the sky, or the crest of a wave, or the flock of snow-white fleecy clouds driven by the Shepherd of the Wind across the hilly pastures of the heavens, or the curve of a snow-bank, or the burning cities of the sunset, or the fern-leaf pencilings of the frost on a window pane? Where there is one discord, there are ten thousand harmonies. T. DEWITT TALMAGE. In many parts of Germany the children have formed themselves into societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. In some towns of France, whole schools, including teachers and pupils, constitute such societies. Are not these examples worthy of imitation by the children of America? |