218 THE REASON WHY 



"Their proud eyes do not see 



The radiance of my helmet there, whose beames had Instantly 

 Thruste backe, and all these ditches filled with carrion of their flesh, 

 If Agamemnon had been kinder." CHAPMAX. 



650. Those who remember the exhibition a few years since, of a certain dwarf 

 called Hervio Nano (Harvey Leach) will have seen a remarkable illustration of 

 this fact. That strangely formed individual, whose legs were not more than 

 eighteen or twenty inches long, but whose arms, head, and chest, were finely 

 developed, contrived with the greatest ease to scramble somewhat like a lame 

 fly along the front of a proscenium and across the ceiling of a theatre, by grasping 

 the inequalities of the moulding only. "The Black Dwarf" of Sir Walter Scott 

 was a being thus formed, and was, by the great novelist, admitted to be a mere 

 transcript from the life. 



651. Why are, birds of prey generally destitute of the power of 

 song ? 



The gift of song would be of no advantage to the accipetres ; 

 they generally live in solitary grandeur, or lie concealed under 

 circumstances where musical notes would prove a detriment, as 

 serving to warn off their victims. 



652. There would appear to be some connection in this respect between the 

 ruminating animals and the song birds, as distinguished from the carnivorous 

 mammalia and birds of prey. The voice, if any, of ruminants is gentle, and not 

 unpleasing, like that of song-birds ; while that of the predacious tribes of both 

 classes is either disagreeable or terrifying. There is something unamiable, 

 at the very least, about a bird of prey which ill assorts with our ideas of music, 

 and the warblings of the fields and groves. If the gift of melody had been at our 

 disposal we should certainly have decided to withhold it from that species .of being, 

 whose career, however necessary in the scale of creation, is one of terror and 

 rapacity. A song from the vulture whatever might be the extent of its vocal 

 powers would be the last thing asked for.* 



653. Why are some birds of prey destined to eat carrion only ? 



Because in doing this they act as scavengers to the countries which 

 they inhabit ; clearing the earth of that carrion which, if suffered 

 to remain, might cause infectious diseases among the people of the 

 country. 



654. An instance of the manner in which the carrion eaters perform the operation 

 of devouring dead carcases, in obedience to their instincts, is afforded in the 

 following description given by the Naturalist Wilson: "A horse had dropped 

 down in the street in convulsions, and dying, it was dragged out to Hampstead* 



Partington'a " Cyclopaedia." 



