236 BIED LIFE 



long wires, reaching beyond the tail, gemmed from tip 

 to base with turquoises. 



The development of even a Cormorant from a 

 featherless reptile, by the mere operation of blind laws, 

 would be a tough morsel to swallow. To believe, if any 

 could be found now to believe it, that in birds of the same 

 internal structure, living under like conditions, and in 

 the same surroundings, effects so exquisitely varied as 

 are to be seen in the group of Paradise Birds could 

 result without aid from some Omnipotent directing 

 intelligence without, would demand a surrender of 

 reason to faith even more complete than would the 

 acceptance of the inspired poetry of the first three 

 chapters of Genesis as history true to the letter. 



Another fact which cannot altogether be put aside in 

 considering the possible limits of such forces as 

 ' Natural Selection,' far stretching as they seem to be, 

 is the apparent permanence of existing forms of animal 

 life. 



The habits of a bird may change rapidly to meet 

 altered circumstances. Within the memory of middle- 

 aged colonists, a harmless vegetable-eating Parrot has 

 become a mischievous bird of prey, feeding when it 

 gets the chance on the kidneys of the sheep on the 

 backs of which it alights. Wood Pigeons in the 

 country among the wariest and most difficult to 

 approach of birds in St. James's Park and the gardens 

 of the Tuileries think it scarcely worth their while to 

 move out of the way of the perambulators. Another 

 Pigeon the Tooth-billed the nearest surviving 



