BIRD. 



423 



habits, there is a correspondence in nature between 

 the rook and the skylark, which brings them to the 

 same field tor their food. 



The bill of the raven and crow, is continued 

 through the magpies, the rollers, and several other 

 birds, which differ more and more in the other parts 

 of their structure and in their habits, till we come to 

 those races which are more and more tree birds, and 

 when they become chiefly so, have a considerable 

 part of their character in the feet. 



There is still another division that may be traced 

 from the crow tribe, and the portion of the character 

 of the bill which they carry along from the raven, is 

 that of snapping with the mandibles. We find this 

 rudimentally in the jackdaw, a little more developed 

 in the chough, and so on till we come to those birds 

 which catch insects upon the wing ; and here again 

 we find a subdivision : one race having the toes 

 united, and terminating in the bee-eaters, and other 

 tribes with bills very long, sharp at the points, slightly 

 arched, not very heavy, but beautifully formed for 

 possessing the maximum of effective strength and 

 ready motion. The other subdivision leads to the 

 swallow tribe, in which the bill is not so much an 

 instrument of death as of capture ; and they, as well 

 as the former subdivision, are dependent on the air 

 for the chief part of their food ; and, as might natu- 

 rally be supposed, have their proper characteristic in 

 the organs of flight. 



To trace out these connections with all that minute- 

 ness which they would require, in order to see clearly 

 the resemblances and differences of birds, as depend- 

 ing on the nature of their food and their organisation 

 for capturing it, would far exceed the limits to which 

 this sketch is restricted. But the hints which have 

 been thrown out may serve to call the attention of 

 observant readers to this very instructive part of the 

 subject , and if such shall be the case, the object of 

 what has been said will be, in a great measure, accom- 

 plished ; and that object, if we are to allow that the 

 great business of human life, is pleasurable enjoy- 

 ment is one of far greater importance than those 

 who have not reflected on it are aware of. Birds 

 are always about us, in a state of nature, go almost 

 where we will ; and the greater part of them, instead 

 of seeking safety by escape from our view, as is the 

 with all those animals which cannot fly, and 

 which are not too formidable or too repulsive to pre- 

 judice for our remaining to examine them, seek it by 

 rising and spreading themselves out, as it were, for 

 our examination in the free atmosphere. Hence, 

 when we are abroad, be it for pleasure, for health, or 

 for business (and the journeying time is, in so far 

 as the last of these at least is concerned, so much 

 time lost), the birds are an ever-open book, in which 

 every one may read as he walks or rides ; and thus 

 turn to a means of acquiring the most useful know- 

 ledge those hours which to them who have not this 

 habit are not only utterly lost, but which are even 

 painful in the passing. 



There is in this last circumstance, and it is one 

 the pain of which is felt by every one who is not 

 absolutely seared to indifference, a most useful lesson. 

 If we throw idly away those portions of time which 

 we cannot employ in our ordinary business, they fail 

 not in galling us for the neglect, and if we y:ersevere 

 in the idle habit till it ceases to be galling, the mind 

 is thereby so unnerved and broken down that, if 

 do not seek ruinous escape in dissipation, we become 



unfit for those very avocations, our eagerness for 

 success in which is the cause why we neglect that 

 nature which should afford employment to our minds 

 in the necessary pauses. 



It is worthy of remark and remembrance that, in 

 all those revivals in which nations have come back 

 rorn a state of listlessness and decline to vigorous 

 action and improvement, the study pf natural history 

 las always formed an early and a prominent part ; 

 and that, in all the fallings-off, that study has been 

 among the first to be neglected. As it is with 

 nations, so it must be with individuals ; for the one 

 is merely the sum of the other, and the sum can 

 be nothing but equal to the individual parts of which 

 it is made up, either in quality or in quantity. But 

 to return to our more immediate subject. 



Many of the foreign species of omnivorous birds 

 differ greatly in their bills, as well as in their general 

 appearance, from those which are met with in the 

 British islands. The most remarkable of these are 

 chiefly inhabitants of warm countries ; and the horn- 

 bills (Buceros) and birds of Paradise (Paradisea) may 

 perhaps be regarded as the two extremes, at least in 

 peculiarity of structure. 



The following figure of the bill of one of the horn- 

 bills of India and the Oriental Isles, will give some 

 notion of the form of this singular organ. 



Horn bill. 



The bills of the other species differ from that of 

 this one chiefly in the form of the horny enlargement 

 on the base of the upper mandible ; but as that is 

 not developed, or at least does not attain its full size 

 till the birds arrive at maturity, which takes three or 

 four years ; and as it is not nearly as much deve- 

 loped in the females as in the males, it is subject to 

 so many variations in the same species, that it can 

 hardly be depended on as a character. From the 

 figure it will be seen that the true bill of these birds 

 has not the robust thrusting form of the bill of the 

 raven, but more resembles that of the chough ; and 

 notwithstanding its formidable outline it is feebler 

 than even that. 



The basal enlargement is cellular, and all parts of 

 the bill are comparatively weak. The mandibles are 

 also more or less notched or serrated along the whole 

 of their cutting edges. This bill, if we except the horny 

 enlargement, the use of which in the economy of 

 the bird is not known, approaches to those of the 

 toucans and other enlarged billed climbing birds of 

 the tropical forests, only in these the upper mandible 

 is much more enlarged, instead of having the en- 

 largement in an appendage. Leaving the appendage 

 out of consideration, the bills which those of these 

 birds resemble most nearly are those of the aracari, 

 only it will be seen on referring to the figure that 

 the aracari has the better formed bill of the two. 



