158 



ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



wings agility could hardly go farther ; from the stand- 

 point of a practical anatomist it is almost inconceivable 

 how muscles and sinews, apparently so very similar 

 to our own, can execute such movements. Without 

 the least visible effort, the marvellous half-bird darts 

 through the air in a wide zigzag, merely touching a 

 branch here and there, upward suddenly with a series 

 of mighty swings, regardless and apparently forgetful 

 of obstacles, down with a gradationed spring that looks 

 like a single leap, up again with a flying rebound 

 through a tangle-work of branches, yet at the same time 

 watching his comrades, aiming and parrying slaps or 

 dodging a shower of missiles ; then a sudden grab, a 

 quick contraction of the hind-legs, and the acrobat sits 

 motionless on a projecting branch, watching a move- 

 ment in the grass that has not escaped his eye during 

 his headlong evolutions. 



The young baboons, too, make their summer life a 

 perpetual circus-game, and if panis and cir censes com- 

 prise the essentials of human happiness, the Hindoo 

 farmer need not complain, and may, after all, enjoy his 

 life quite as much as if he had exterminated the merry 

 saints in order to save their tithe of the rice crop. 



