Bringing Over Different Friends | My Web Site Page 049 Chapter 03 Page 01

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I dare say you notice that all the birds in this picture have long beaks. We may be sure from this that they live in places and seek for their food in ways in which long beaks are just what they want. The fact is they are all marsh birds, and the soil of marshes being wet and soft, and full of worms, these long beaks enable them to probe it, and so get at the worms. I think the beaks of birds afford a striking example of how good God is in adapting creatures to the mode of life He has appointed for them. The eagles and hawks, you know, are provided with strong, short bills to enable them to seize and tear flesh. Those of canaries and all the finches are just the very instruments to crack seeds with. Parrots, with their tremendous weapons, can crush the hardest nuts of the tropic forest. The crossbill is fitted with a wonderful tool for tearing fir-cones to pieces. Robins and the other warblers have soft bills, which are all they want for eating insects and grubs.

To insist on seeing things for oneself is to be in [Greek text], or in plain English, an idiot; nor do I see any safer check against general vigour and clearness of thought, with consequent terseness of expression, than that provided by the curricula of our universities and schools of public instruction. If a young man, in spite of every effort to fit him with blinkers, will insist on getting rid of them, he must do so at his own risk. He will not be long in finding out his mistake. Our public schools and universities play the beneficent part in our social scheme that cattle do in forests: they browse the seedlings down and prevent the growth of all but the luckiest and sturdiest. Of course, if there are too many either cattle or schools, they browse so effectually that they find no more food, and starve till equilibrium is restored; but it seems to be a provision of nature that there should always be these alternate periods, during which either the cattle or the trees are getting the best of it; and, indeed, without such provision we should have neither the one nor the other. At this moment the cattle, doubtless, are in the ascendant, and if university extension proceeds much farther, we shall assuredly have no more Mrs. Newtons and Mrs. Bromfields; but whatever is is best, and, on the whole, I should propose to let things find pretty much their own level.

How curious is the structure of the nest of the Bullfinch or Chaffinch! The inside of it is lined with cotton and fine silken threads; and the outside cannot be sufficiently admired, though it is composed only of various kinds of fine moss. The color of these mosses, resembling that of the bark of the tree in which the nest is built, proves that the bird intended it should not be easily discovered. In some nests, hair, wool, and rushes are cleverly interwoven. In others, the parts are firmly fastened by a thread, which the bird makes of hemp, wool, hair, or, more commonly, of spiders' webs. Other birds--as, for instance, the blackbird and the lapwing--after they have constructed their nests, plaster the inside with mortar; they then stick upon it, while quite wet, some wool or moss to give warmth; but all alike construct their nests so as to add to their security.

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