"PLEASED WITH A FEATHER." 367 



can pick up about our fields or our houses. The old view of creation, 

 which represented it as single and instantaneous, made each creature 

 or each organ seem like a mere piece of molded mechanism, with no 

 history, no puzzle, and no recognizable relation to its like elsewhere. 

 But the new view, which represents creation as continuous, progres- 

 sive, and regular, teaches lis to see in every species or every structure 

 a result of previous causes, an adaptation to preexisting needs. Thus 

 we are enabled to find in a flower, a fruit, or a feather, innumerable 

 clews which lead us back to its ultimate origin, and give delightful 

 exercise to our intelligence in tracing out the probable steps by which 

 this complex whole has been produced. 



I often figure to myself the difference between the two ways of re- 

 garding natural objects, by means of the initial letters in an ordinary 

 volume, and the initial letters which Mr. Linley Sambourne draws for 

 us so cleverly in " Punch." Look at the big O of a newspaper leader 

 it is just a mass of metal, poured into a circular or oval type. But 

 look at the big O which the ingenious artist tricks out for us with 

 social allusions or political innuendoes, and what a world of amuse- 

 ment you will find if you take the trouble to spell out all its quaint 

 devices ! See how every cui'l has some playful hit at a noble lord or 

 an honorable member ; how every detail smiles with gentle satire at 

 some passing event or some universal topic. Not a touch but has a 

 meaning for those who will seek it ; not a careless little smudge in 

 the corner but brims over with deep purpose and infinite wealth of 

 covert mirth. So it is, I think, with flowers, fruits, or feathers, when 

 once we have learned to look for their hidden hints. This little twist 

 points back to some strange fact in the past history of the species ; 

 that unobtrusive spur or knob is the clew to whole volumes of botanical 

 or zoological lore. Not a detail but tells of the origin and development 

 of the whole ; not a tuft, a spot, or a streak but teems with informa- 

 tion for the seeker who has found out the method of seeking aright. 



Again, to vary our simile, let us visit some ancient British earth- 

 work or Roman camp. If we go as mere rustics, we see in it all 

 nothing more than a broken ridge of earth on the summit of a rolling 

 down. We are not even sure whether it is really the handiwork of 

 man, or some queer natural formation like the Devil's Dike, the Giant's 

 Causeway, and the parallel roads of Glen Roy. But if we go under 

 the guidance of some skilled archaeologist, what a flood of light he is 

 able to throw over its history and its meaning ! This row of strong- 

 holds, he tells us, formed the frontier line, say between the Welsh of 

 Dorset and the Welsh of Devon. Here the Durotriges and Damnonii, 

 the men of the water-vale and the men of the hills, faced one another 

 from their opposite heights. Sweep round your eye in a semicircle 

 along this series of points, overhanging the valley of the Axe, and you 

 will find every higher summit crowned with a " castle," a rude earth- 

 work raised by the men whom our fafhers drove out of the land. That 



