LOYE S MEENTE. 21 



rather its two hands. For, as its arms and hands are 

 turned into wings, all it has to depend npon, in eco- 

 nomical and practical life, is its beak. The beak, tliere- 

 fore, is at once its sword, its carpenter's tool-box, and its 

 dressing-case ; partly also its musical instrument ; all this 

 besides its function of seizing and preparing the food, in 

 which functions alone it has to be a trap, carving-knife, 

 and teeth, all in one. 



21. It is this need of the beak's being a mechanical 

 tool which chiefly regulates the form of a bird's face, as 

 opposed to a four-footed animal's. If the question of 

 food were the only one, we might w'onder why there were 

 not more four-footed creatures living on seeds than there 

 are ; or why those that do — field-mice and the like — have 

 not beaks instead of teeth. But the fact is that a bird's 

 beak is by no means a perfect eating or food-seizing 

 instrument. A squirrel is far more dexterous with a nut 

 than a cockatoo; and a dog manages a bone incom- 

 parably better than an eagle. But the beak has to do so 

 much more ! Pruning feathers, building nests, and the 

 incessant discipline in military arts, are all to be thought 

 of, as much as feeding. 



Soldiership, especially, is a much more imperious neces- 

 sity among birds than quadrupeds. Keither lions nor 

 wolves habitually use claws or teeth in contest with their 

 ovra species ; but birds, for their partners, their nests, 

 their hunting-grounds, and their personal dignity, are 

 nearly always in contention ; their courage is unequalled 



