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love's aiEiNiE. 25 



cillae, or wagtails ; but the ornithologists have no real 

 business to put him among them. The swing of the long 

 <( tail-feathers in the true wagtail is entirely consequent on 

 its motion, not impulsive of it — the tremulous shake is 

 c'/'tcr alighting. ]>ut the robin leaps with wing, tail, and 

 foot, all in time, and all helping each other. Leaps, I 

 say ; and you check at the word ; and ought to check : 

 you look at a bird hopping, and the motion is so much a 

 matter of course, you never think how it is done. But 

 do you think you would find it easy to hop like a robin if 

 you had two — all but wooden — legs, like this ? 



26. I have looked ^^•holly in vain through all my books 

 on birds, to find some account of the muscles it uses in 

 hopping, and of the part of the toes with which the spring 

 is given. I must leave you to find out that for yourselves ; 

 it is a little bit of anatomy which I think it highly desira- 

 ble for you to know, but which it is not my lousiness to 

 teach you. Only observe, this is the point to be made 

 out. You leap yourselves, with the toe and ball of the 

 foot ; but, in that power of leajjing, you lose the faculty 

 of grasp ; on the contrary, with your hands, you grasp as 

 a bird with its feet. But von cannot hop on vour hands. 

 A cat, a leopard, and a monkey, leap or grasp with equal 

 ease ; but the action of their paws in leaping is, I ima- 

 gine, from the fleshy ball of the foot ; while in the bird, 

 characteristically yafi-^Mvu^, this fleshy ball is reduced to 

 a boss or series of bosses, and the nails are elongated 



into sickles or horns ; nor does the springing j)ower seem 



2 



