12 PLUMAGE OF BIRDS. 



How pleasant the life of a bird must be, 

 Flitting about from tree to tree 



she would by no means lead us to infer that the great 

 pleasure of this state of existence consisted in idleness. All 

 the work that the bird has to perform in the economy of na- 

 ture is to it at once a duty and a pleasure, which is ever fresh 

 and new, and therefore never cloys nor satiates, as human 

 pleasures too often do. Whether pursuing the gilded fly 

 or droning beetle through the air, or hunting among the 

 bushes and green crops for the caterpillar, or i tapping the 

 hollow beech tree,' and exploring the crevices for larvge, or 

 hunting amid the roots of the grass for wire and other worms, 

 or picking out the maggot from the bud, or in any other 

 way helping to keep under the vast swarms of insect life, 

 which but for the Birds would devour every green thing, 

 and render the earth a desert incapable of furnishing sus- 

 tenance for man ; whether doing this, or building their 

 pretty nests and rearing their young broods, they always 

 appear to be, and doubtless are, in a state of supreme en- 

 joyment; they are at once working and playing, and are, 

 as our readers no doubt think, most enviable and happy 

 creatures. 



We will now turn our attention, for a few minutes, to 

 that wherein consists so much of the beauty of birds to 

 the plumage or feathers. And, first, let us endeavour to 

 answer the question What is a feather ? Chemists tell 

 us that this, like hair, and wool, and the coverings of all 

 animals, is composed of sulphur, iron, carbonate and phos- 

 phate of lime, and an oil, in which is the colouring prin- 

 ciple. We need not trouble ourselves about the relative 

 proportions of these component parts, but just remark that 

 we have here earths and metals, such as go to form and 

 hold together the great globe on which we live, and which 

 minister most largely to the physical and intellectual wants 

 of mankind. Rough, and black, and unsightly, are these in 

 many of their forms and combinations, yet here we see them 

 floating aloft in the air, white as the driven snow, or re- 

 flecting all the colours of the rainbow. And then the 

 peculiar structure of the feather; how wonderful is it! 



