ESSAYS AT A REPUBLIC. 259 



Is there not here an idea of property, and of tlie sacred rights of 

 labour ? 



Where shall they find securities, and how assure a coniniencenient 

 of public order? It is curious to know in what -way the birds have 

 resolved the question. 



Two solutions presented themselves. Tlie first was that of associ- 

 iit'ion — the organization of a government which should concentrate 

 force, and by the reunion of the weak form a defensive power. The 

 second (but miraculous ? impossible ? imaginative ?) woidd have been 

 the realization of the aerial city of Aristophanes, — the construction of 

 a dwelling-place guarded by its lightness from the unwieldy brigands 

 of the air, and inaccessible to the approaches of the brigands of the eaith 

 — the himter, the serpent. 



These two things — the one diflicult, the other apparently im- 

 possible — the bird has realized. 



At first, association and government. Monarchy is the inferior 

 venture. Just as the apes have a king to conduct each band, several 

 species of birds, especially in dangerous emeigencies, a])pear to follow 

 a chief. 



The ant-eaters have a king ; so have the birds of paradise. The 

 tyrant, an intrepid little bird of extraordinary audacity, affords his 

 protection to some larger species, which follow and confide in him. It 

 is assei-ted that the noble hawk, repressing its instincts of prey for 

 certain species, allows the trembling families which trust in his 

 generosity to nestle under and around him. 



But the safest fellowship is that between equals. The ostrich, the 

 penguin, a crowd of species, unite for this purpose. Several kinds, 

 associating for the purpose of travel, form, at the moment of emigration, 

 into temporary republics. We know the good luiderstanding, the 

 republican gravity, the perfect tactic of the storks and cranes. Others, 

 smaller in size or less completely armed^ — in climates, moreover, where 

 nature, cruelly prolific, engenders without pause their formidable foes — 

 place their abodes close together, but do not mingle them, and under a 

 common roof, living in separate partitions, form veritable hives. 



