334 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 



From winter he passes into winter. "Of wintra in winter eft 

 cymeth." 



Page 247. Nests and Hatching.- — In the vast extent of the 

 islands linking India to Australia, a species of bird of the family 

 GaUinacece dispenses with the labour of hatching her eggs. Raising 

 an enormous hillock of grasses whose fermentation will produce a 

 degree of heat favourable to the process, the parents, as soon as this 

 task is completed, trust to Nature for the reproduction of their kind. 

 Mr. Gould, who furnishes these curious details, speaks also of some 

 curious nests constructed by another species of bird. It consists of 

 an avenue formed by small branches planted in the ground, and woven 

 together at their upper extremities in the fashion of a dome. The 

 structure is consolidated by enlaced and intertwined herbs. This 

 first stage of their labour accomplished, the artists proceed to the work 

 of decoration. They seek in every direction, and often at a distance, 

 the gaudiest feathers, the finest polished shells, and the most brilliant 

 stones, to strew over the entrance. This avenue would seem, however, 

 not to be the nest, but the place where the birds hold their first ren- 

 dezvous. (See the coloured plates in Mr. Gould's magnificent volume, 

 "Australian Birds.") 



Page 266. Instinct and Reason. — The ignorant and inattentive 

 think all things nearly alike. And Science perceives that all things 

 differ. According as we leam to obsefve, do these differences become 

 apparent; that imperceptible "shade," and woi-thless "almost," which 

 at the outset does not prevent us from confusing all things with one 

 another, really distinguishes them, and points out a notable discre- 

 pancy, a wide interval betwixt this object and that, a blank, a hiatus, 

 sometimes an enormous abyss, which separates and holds them apart. 



