4 CHARACTERISTICS OF COMMON BIRDS. 



He had, during the successive preceding periods of creation, so framed the 

 crust of the earth, with its coal forests, its minerals, rocks, and soil, that 

 it was at once ready for a fallen race, only requiring that labour to bring 

 it out, that toiling sweat of brow to keep down the rugged crops of thorns 

 and thistles, which was one of the merciful fruits of man's rebellious sin. 



Uppingham, November 4th., 1857. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF COMMON BIRDS. 



BY 0. S. ROUND, ESQ. 



{Continued from page 223, Vol. vii.) 



Birds, like other wild animals, are divided into classes pursuing various 

 modes of life, each path exercising a manifest influence upon their manners 

 and appearances, the search after food to sustain that life being the great 

 motive power whereby their movements are regulated. Hence, whilst the 

 graminivorous are walkers and runners, because their food is gotten on the 

 earth, so the insectivorous are endowed with extraordinary powers of wing, 

 and the aquatic birds are web-footed. But there is one class, which is, 

 perhaps, the most limited number of all, which subsists upon nocturnal 

 prey, and the reason for this is obvious, for nocturnal animals are likewise 

 comparatively few, and in this, as in all nature, we find that all-wise 

 adaptation of the means to the end that must strike the most unobservant 

 at every turn in the pursuit of natural science. Almost all night-birds are 

 garrulous, for although their ocular powers are far superior to our own, or 

 that of diurnal creatures, for distinguishing objects during the hours of 

 darkness, still, to a great extent, it is darkness even to them, and they 

 cannot see each other at any great distance, and it is therefore necessary 

 that they should have some other means of collecting their forces, or of 

 knowing each other's locality. Thus, as we all know very well, Owls hoot 

 and scream, Nightjars rail, and Stone Curlews whistle, and Herons, which 

 are somewhat nocturnal, have a note approaching to a shriek, whilst the 

 Bittern utters a harsh note like a trombone. Nay more, birds which are 

 strictly diurnal, particularly water-birds, when they do move at night, which 

 sometimes chances, immediately become noisy, and for the same reason as 

 I have above stated; and who knows but that, like many a youth-would- 

 be-man who manfully starts to walk home across a common after nightfall, 

 the silent darkness has not something awful and fear-inspiring even to non- 

 reasoning creatures; and as he makes the air echo with his whistle, so they 

 awake the stillness in their own way. It has been advanced by a divine 

 of superior talents, who met an early grave from over-exertion in his sacred 



