108 DARWINIAXISM. 



filling the air from a height of, twenty feet to that, as it 

 appeared, of two or three thousand above the ground ; 

 1 and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots 

 of many horses running to battle ; ' when they alighted, 

 they were more numerous than the leaves in the field." 

 From p. 457 : " Overhead, numerous gannets, frigate-birds, 

 and terns rest on the trees. The gannets, sitting on their 

 rude nests, gaze at one with a stupid yet angry air. The 

 noddies, as their name expresses, are silly little creatures. 

 But there is one charming bird ; it is a small, snow-white 

 tern, which smoothly hovers at the distance of a few feet 

 above one's head, its large black eyes scanning, with great 

 curiosity, your expression. Little imagination is required 

 to fancy that so light and delicate a body must be 

 tenanted by some wandering fairy spirit." P. 289 : " The 

 yelping of the guid-guid, and the sudden whew-whew of 

 the cheucau," sometimes come from afar off, and some- 

 times from close at hand; the little black wren of 

 Tierra del Fuego occasionally adds its cry ; the creeper 

 (Oxyurus) follows the intruder screaming and twittering ; 

 the humming-bird may be seen every now and then 

 darting from side to side, and emitting, like an insect, its 

 shrill chirp ; lastly, from the top of some lofty tree the 

 indistinct but plaintive note of the white-tufted tyrant- 

 flycatcher (Myobius) may be noticed." P. 3 1 6 : "It (the 

 noise of the stones rattling over each other in the 

 mountain torrents on the Cordilleras) was like thinking 

 on time, where the minute that now glides past is irre- 

 coverable : so was it with these stones ; the ocean is their 

 eternity, and each note of that wild music told of one 

 more step towards their destiny." What speaks there is 

 quite a metaphysical imagination, and the reader who con- 

 sults the original will find the passage much fuller in it, 

 and consequently grander. On p. 322 there is another 

 very splendid passage, the concluding words of which are 



