30 STRA Y FEA THERS FROM MANY BIRDS. 



expended. The literature of birds would fill a borough 

 library ; and in its compilation a vast amount of work 

 has been found for printers, artists, and authors, and an 

 enormous capital has been sunk by publishers and 

 public. Then, too, the various museums in all parts of 

 the world are not kept up without a numerous staff of 

 assistants; the bird division of the British Museum alone 

 costing the nation considerably over ;iooo a year. 



Such beautiful objects as birds have from the very 

 earliest historic times been kept in confinement or 

 domesticated for the sake of ornament and song. 

 From the remotest times of which we have any record, 

 Peacocks appear to have been kept for the sake of their 

 exceptional beauty ; and, in some parts of India, they 

 are still deemed sacred birds, and large flocks of them 

 are attached to many of the Hindoo temples. Another 

 valuable bird of ornament is the Swan, which lends such 

 a picturesque charm to a sheet of water. The Black 

 Swan of Australia has been imported into the northern 

 hemisphere, where it commands a high price for orna- 

 mental purposes. Other birds of brilliant plumage are 

 kept in confinement for the sake of their beauty the 

 superb Parrots and Macaws, the Tanagers, the Orioles, 

 and others, too numerous to specify. It may almost 

 be laid down as an axiom in ornithology that birds of 

 richest plumage have the smallest powers of voice. The 

 singing birds are mostly dull of dress ; nevertheless, the 



