Part 40

"Whither, midst falling dew While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

"Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.

"Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean side?

"There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast-- The desert and illimitable air-- Lone wandering, but not lost.

"All day thy wings have fanned At that far height the cold, thin atmosphere; Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near.

"And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

"Thou'rt gone; the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.

"He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright."

W. C. BRYANT.

THE FIFTH DAY.

FLYING FOWL.

"Gavest Thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich?"

"Doth the hawk fly by Thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south?"

"Doth the eagle mount up at Thy command, and make her nest on high?"--JOB xxxix. 13, 26, 27.

"The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."--SONG OF SOLOMON ii. 12.

It was on the FIFTH DAY of Creation that the silence was broken by the voice of birds. We are so accustomed to the various cries of animals, the buzzing of insects, and above all to the chirping and twittering and singing of birds, that we can hardly imagine what a voiceless world would be like.

I have heard that far away in New Zealand, travellers who try to make their way through the great tangle of trees and creepers which is called the "Bush," speak of the silence and loneliness of the dense forests as dreadful, and they particularly mention that there is no voice of bird to be heard there. Very different is a place I know, where, although the trees in which they perch are by the roadside, and noisy carts and carriages are coming and going all day long, yet the sparrows overhead keep up such a constant chatter and flutter that once as I passed that way a countryman looked up at the trees and smiled, and said to me, "Plenty of company up there!"

When I told the children this they were much amused, and I am sure they thought it would be very dull never to hear the crowing of a cock or the "quack, quack" of a duck--to say nothing of the soft cooing of doves in the wood, and the sweet, rich notes of the thrushes and blackbirds.

A Frenchman, who has written a very large book all about birds, says that if we were not so accustomed to them we should think a bird flying through the air the most wonderful thing we had ever seen--and I think he is right; but before we speak of these wonderful and beautiful creatures, let us read once more the verses in Genesis which tell us of their birthday, beginning with, "And God said," and ending with, "And the evening and the morning were the fifth day."

We have been speaking of the living creatures which the waters brought forth, and now we must think a little of the "winged fowl," which were made to people the "expansion," and are sometimes called the "fish of the air," as the fishes are called the "birds of the ocean."

Of all the happy living things I think none seem so full of joy as the birds. Their very flight has such buoyancy and gladness in it, and their songs seem always to be telling of happiness. Did you ever watch the sea-gulls flashing and darting about, and then floating quietly above your head, or the swallows in their rapid flight, wheeling round and round, and think how beautiful a thing it is just to see them on the wing, fluttering, soaring, floating in that ocean of air which is their home?

Birds are marked off from all other vertebrate animals by the possession of feathers. How wonderful is the wing of a bird; spread wide when it is flying, and folded up like a fan when it is resting, perched upon the branch of a tree, swaying to and fro in the sunshine. But how sad it is to see such a wild, free creature as a lark, or even a thrush or a linnet, pent up in a narrow cage, where there is no room to stretch those wings so strong and light, no swinging branch to rest upon; but all the little prisoner can do is to hop from one perch to another, and beat its wings against the "wiry grate" which shuts it in so hopelessly. I suppose we don't think so much of captive birds as of other captives, because a bird in a cage is such a common sight, and when we hear it sing so sweetly it seems as if it could not be unhappy; but when we say "as happy as a bird," I doubt if it is of birds in cages we are thinking after all.

The cage may be of gilded wires, or of willow twigs; but both are alike prison bars which keep the birdie back from the liberty to which it was born. At least this was what an English sailor felt when he met a man carrying a cage full of birds. He had been a prisoner himself, away in France, and had many a time longed to be free; and now when he saw the birds in their gilded prison, he was not happy until he had made a bargain and got them, cage and all, to do what he liked with. What was the astonishment of the man from whom he had bought them, when he saw the sailor open the cage door and let them out, one by one, until all the little prisoners were free!

As you have watched the birds in their flight, I daresay you have wondered how they can keep themselves up in the air. Even the little wren has some weight; much more the crows which make their nests in the topmost branches of the trees. We say "as light as a feather"; yet the downiest feather has some weight, and will find its way to the ground if not kept up by wind or breath.

It is true that the "feathered fowl," as all kinds of birds are called in the Bible, are very much heavier than the air in which they float and swim, using their wings for oars, just as the fish use their fins. But do you remember that little balloon inside the fish, which enables it to rise through the water? A bird is almost a live balloon; as it flies, it breathes air into every part of its body; this air becomes heated, and is kept warm by the feathers; and as hot air becomes light, the bird is so much lighter than the air which surrounds it, that it can easily rise higher and higher, until, like the skylark, its little quivering body seems almost lost in the far blue sky, and its "waterfall of song" alone shows where it is.

The bones of a bird are very strong, but they are also very light; if you look at the bones of a chicken, you will see that some of them are hollow; when the bird was alive, those hollow places were all filled with air. Take a dead bird and look at the quills at the roots of the feathers; and now watch that swallow as it darts so rapidly hither and thither. The bird is able to fill each tiny quill with air, so that its body becomes like a balloon, and it rises high above the roofs of the houses; then, like the fish, when it wishes to sink, it can breathe out all the air again, and so constantly change its weight, and fly, now high, now low, faster than any train can rush or ship sail.

There is a wonderful bird which sailors have seen a thousand miles from land. It is called the Frigate-bird, and has never been known to rest on the sea; it lives upon sea-creatures, but makes its nest on shore. Each of its wings, if stretched out as when the bird is flying, measures more than the height of a man; yet even such an enormous bird as this does not sink down by its own weight, but flies mile after mile upon its strong wings, every feather of which unites strength and lightness, never resting till its airy voyage is over, and it finds its nest. It is said that when storms sweep over the sea, this "ocean eagle" mounts upward until it has reached the calm which lies above the storm, and so sails upon its untroubled way.

The feathers of birds are to them what its scales are to the fish, and hair and wool to other animals--a protection. They are not only light and strong, but warm, and by their means, as a bird soars into colder regions of air, it is protected from the cold: while for aquatic birds there is a special provision--by pressing with their beaks an oil-gland near the tail they can waterproof their feathers! Now look again at your dead bird; you will see that the wings and tail are formed of quills, while the surface of the body is covered with short feathers--even the ear being protected by a little tuft--and all the spaces between are filled with the softest, warmest down. Could any creature be more beautifully equipped for its journey through the fields of air?