814 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 



his great personal force, but it implies his extreme individuality, his 

 isolation, his social weakness. 



The profound, the marvellous solidarity, which is found in the 

 higher genera of insects, as in the bees and ants, is not discovered 

 among birds. Flocks of them are common, but true republics are 

 rare. 



Family ties are very strong in their influence, such as maternity 

 and love. Brotherhood, the sympathy of species, the mutual assist- 

 ance rendered even by different kinds, are not unknown. Never- 

 theless, fraternity is strong among them m the inferior line. The 

 whole heart of the bird is in his love, in his nest. 



There lies his isolation, his feebleness, his dependence ; there also 

 the temptation to seek for himself a defender. 



The most exalted of living; beings is not the less one of those 

 which the most eagerly demand protection. 



'Via 



:>; 



Page 67. On the life of the bird in the egg. — I draw these details 

 from the accurate M. Duvernoy. Ovology in our days has become a 

 science. Yet I know but a few treatises specially devoted to the bird's 

 egg. The oldest is that of an Abbe Manesse, written in the last cen- 

 tury, very verbose, and not very instructive (the MS. is preserved in 



the Museum Library). The same library possesses the German work 

 of Wirfing and Gunther on nests and eggs ; and another, also German, 



