CERTAIN PHASES OF BIRD -LIFE. 



343 



table. Surrounding their ends with powder at S, and sending through 

 the powder the unretarded charge, the powder is scattered mechani- 

 cally. Introducing the wet string to into the circuit, it infallibly 



ignites. 



Fig. 34. 



CERTAIN PHASES OF BIRD-LIFE. 



Br CHARLES C. ABBOTT, M. D. 



"ATOT WITHSTANDING so general an interest has been taken in 

 -LM studying the habits of our birds, by both scientific and amateur 

 naturalists, there are several phases of bird-life to which little or no 

 attention has been paid ; at least scant reference, if any, has been 

 made to them, in ornithological literature. 



One such feature of bird-life is the mode of acquiring the range of 

 flight-power characteristic of each species. A careful and long-con- 

 tinued study of our birds in their chosen haunts, free from all unnatural 

 (i. e., human) persecution, has enabled me to detect but little variation 

 in the flight-powers of the individuals of any species of bird observed 

 far less than in the general range of their habits : but still, such 

 individual variation, I think, does exist. A bird is not a perfectly- 

 adapted machine, capable of faultlessly filling its destined place in 

 Nature, and unerringly performing everything required of it. With 

 the simple growth of the feathers of the wing, there does not come 

 the ability to fly. Just as creeping pi*ecedes walking, in children, this 

 is a gradually-acquired power. The commencement may be termed 



