32 love's meinie. 



or four more feathers have overlapped it again, all together, 

 with their joined red, are just enough to give the colour 

 determined upon, each of them contributing a tinge. 

 There are about thirty of these glowing filaments on each 

 side, (the whole being no larger across than a well-grown 

 currant,) and each of these is itself another exquisite feath- 

 er, with central quill and lateral webs, whose filaments are 

 not to be counted. 



The extremity of these breast plumes parts slightly into 

 two, as you see in the peacock's, and many other such de- 

 corative ones. The transition from the entiitsly leaf-like 

 shape of the active plume, with ita oblique ^point, to the 

 more or less symmetrical dualism of the decorative plume, 

 corresponds with the change from the pointed green 

 leaf to the dual, or heart-shaped, petal of many flowers. 

 I shall return to this part of our subject, having given 

 you, I believe, enough of detail for the present. 



o5. I have said nothing to-day of the mythology of the 

 bird, though I told you that would always be, for us, the 

 most important part of its natural history. But I am 

 obliged, sometimes, to take what we immediately want, 

 rather than what, ultimately, we shall need chiefly. In 

 the second place, you probably, most of you, know more 

 of the mythology of the robin than I do, for the stories 

 about it are all northern, and I know scarcely any myths 

 but the Italian and Greek. You will find under the 

 name "Eobin," in Miss Yonge's exhaustive and admirable 

 " History of Christian ISTames," the various titles of hon- 



