TlIK EMPIRE OF THE ATIJ. 417 



with one the dasliiiii;- swift, and the other the tireh'ss frigate bird and 

 this tells the wlioh' story. 



I may here formulate an axiom: No speed, no tliulit. 



T once had a curious |)rol)leni to solve, based on the above princii)le. 

 It was years a.i;-o, and I was in Algeria; so far as I now rend)eniber, it 

 was in 18(!4, in the si>rin<ii,-. T already understood the problem i)retty 

 well, and with a li' hel[) ami better N^urrouTulings I might have suc- 

 (•eeded in imitating' the birds. [ ap])reciated the possit)le results; i)er- 

 haps the French collai)se of l.STO would have been averted, the Itusso- 

 Turkish war might have remained in Jitnbo, nations might have gained 

 freedom, or Asia might have invaded Kuropc^ with countless thiongs; 

 who knows 'i lUit why specuhite ? Let us leave all that asi(h\ 



I was saying that one tine morning, in the port of Algiers, 1 Inid gone, 

 to the harbor to h)ok over the fish caught over night. This was my 

 way of studying the dogtish and the form of the great submarine 

 swimmers, etc. There I ran across a peddler, who instead offish had 

 some sea l)irds for sale. There were scune titty of them. 1 <lid not at 

 first know what kind of birds they were, but after a while L lecognized 

 tliem to be "procellariie," variety Pvffinus kiihlii, or stormy petrels, 

 which I had already seeii at sea, but only afar oiT. As they were cheap, 

 1 treated myself to four, and then J took the train at S (t'clock, and at 

 10 I was at home on the plain of Mitidja. 



It was my object to examine and measure these birds, and then to 

 set them at liberty when I was tired of them. I therefore deposited 

 them on the water, in a little duck-pond, near my farm. Here T think 

 it jiiay be well to give a short <h'scrij>tion of this bird, so that jtersons 

 who are )iot acipiainted with it may fully a])preciate all my nushaps. 



The ])etr('l is a bird about the si/e of a small hen. l>y referring to my 

 table, (The (lull type,) p. 433, it will be seen tliat it weighs 1.G5 pounds, 

 tliat its spread of wings is 4.10 feet, by a width of oidy 5 inches. Thus its 

 eciuipment for flight consists, as it were, of two drumsti<'ks, which only 

 l)ermit its launching forth uiuler special conditions. We nuiy ibrm a 

 fair idea 1)y imagining a pullet equip])ed with two flat rules, such as 

 draughtsnuMinse, in lieu of wings. The legs are long, delicate, aiulfeebhv, 

 the feet are webbed. The bird can scarcely walk ; it runs 8 or 10 steps, 

 then stops as if fatigued. 



Myfoui- birds, seton the pcnid, did nothingin i)artieular; they seemed 

 to Inne no notion of taking flight. I took up one, the weakest one, and 

 I threw it into the air sufficiently high. It undertook to fly, crashed 

 against a wall and knock<Ml its brains out. 1 was vexed; F took a 

 second l)ird and cairie<l it upstairs; to the first tlooi'. This second 

 bird was sick; it fell so stupidly that I allowed the dog to strangle it. 

 So I took a third, and 1 took my oath tlnit day to see a stormy petrel 

 in full flight. To biing this about, I went to the top of my observa- 

 tory, which was several feet higher than the ])eak of the roof Thence 

 llannched the creature into tlie air. That poor devil of a bird had no 

 Jl. Mis. Ill 1>7 



