love's MEINIE. 47 



of an inibroken niid constant shadow, in the tower, or 

 under the eaves. 



Do yon suppose tliat this is part of its necessary 

 economy, and that a swallow could not catch flies unless 

 it lived in a hole ? 



Not so. This instinct is part of its brotherhood with 

 another race of creatures. It is given to complete a mesh 

 in the reticulation of the orders of life. 



55. I have already given you several reasons for my 

 wish that you should retain, in (;lassifying birds, the now 

 rejected order of Picae. I am going to i-ead you a pas- 

 sage from Humboldt, which shows you what difiiculties 

 one may get into for want of it. 



You will find in the second volume of his personal 

 narrative, an account of the cave of Caripe in Xew 

 Andalusia, which is inhabited by entirely nocturnal birds, 

 having the gaping mouths of the goat-sucker and the 

 swallow, and yet feeding on fruit. 



Unless, which Mi*. Humboldt does not tell us, they sit 

 under the trees outside, in the night time, and hold their 

 mouths open, for the berries to drop into, there is not the 

 smallest occasion for their having wide months, like swal- 

 lows. Still less is there any need, since they are fruit 

 eaters, for their living in a cavern 1,500 feet out of day- 

 light. They have only, in consequence, the trouble of 

 carrying in the seeds to feed their young, and the floor of 

 the cave is thus covered, Ijy the seeds they let fall, with a 

 growth of unfortunate pale plants, which have never seen 



