30 J. E. LITTLEBOT — THE BIKDS OF OUR DISTRICT. 



te remembered that it is now several years since most of them were 

 shot. Since commencing this paper, I have been informed that an 

 African widdah bird has been shot by Mr. Willshin on his farm at 

 South End, near Redboiirn. I mentioned the fact to Mr. Harting, 

 and he considers that the non-migratory habits of this bird render 

 it in the highest degree improbable that it could have found its 

 way to this country unaided, but that it was, in fact, an escaped 

 cage-bird. Only by yesterday's post I received from Mr. James 

 H. Tuke, of Hitchin, some interesting notes respecting birds near 

 that town. I shall ask leave to read the paper before we separate, 

 and I shall add the names of any of the birds referred to, which 

 have not been previously recorded, to my classified list. 



I have now glanced very rapidly at a few of the leading charac- 

 teristics of most of the birds that frequent our district. I have 

 done so, I well know, in a very imperfect and superficial manner, 

 but I hope that I may have succeeded in exciting some little 

 interest in the subject that we have under discussion. Had I 

 possessed sufficient anatomical knowledge to enable me to do it, I 

 should have liked to lay before you a few particulars respecting 

 the marvellous adaptability of structure, exhibited by almost all 

 our birds, to the circumstances by which they are surrounded, and 

 to the method of their lives. The strong talon of the hawk, the 

 eye of the owl, the peculiar appliances of the butcher-bird, the 

 clasping claw of the little creepers, the wing of the swallow, 

 the egg of the cuckoo, the webbed foot of the water-fowl, and a 

 host of other not less striking characteristics, would have afforded 

 a wide field for comment. Whether these peculiarities or adapt- 

 ations are the result of progressive development ; whether, in 

 other words, the necessities and exigencies of life have engendered 

 in each bird its peculiar characteristics, or whether these peculiar 

 characteristics have themselves determined the destiny and manner 

 of its life, is a problem that I shall not even attempt to solve. 



So far as Creative power is concerned, I confess that it appears to 

 me to be of extremely little import which of these theories is the 

 true one; whether it has pleased the Almighty to place His creatures 

 on the earth He had prepared for them in their present forms, or 

 whether He saw fit to endow them with certain germs of life which 

 should enable them, by slow degrees, to develope new faculties and 

 assume higher functions. This certainly is a most important 

 question for scientific investigation, but it is one that need not, in 

 the smallest degree, interfere with our estimate of the infinite 

 wisdom and almighty power of Creative skill. It is surely pleasant 

 to recognise in everything by which we are surrounded, be it ani- 

 mate or inanimate nature, the direct impress of divine goodness, 

 and to realise as far as possible the truth of Pope's well-known 

 couplet — 



"All are but partf? of one stupendous -(vhole, 

 "Whose body nature is, and God the soxil." 



