I. THE ROBIN. 29 



knowing whether you want to express force, grasp, 

 or firm ground pressure, or dexterity and tact in 

 motion. And as the actions of the foot and the hand 

 in man are made by every great painter perfectly 

 expressive of the character of mind, so the expres- 

 sions of rapacity, cruelty, or force of seizure, in the 

 harpy; "the gryphon, and the hooked and clawed evil 

 spirits of early religious art, can only be felt by 

 extreme attention to the original form. 



• 28. And now I return to our main question, for 

 the robin's breast to answer, " What is a feather .? " 

 You know something about it already ; that it is 

 composed of a quill, with its lateral filaments, ter- 

 minating generally, more or less, in a point ; that 

 these extremities of the quills, lying over each other 

 like the tiles of a house, allow the wind and rain 

 to pass over them with the least possible resistance, 

 and form a protection alike from the heat and the 

 cold ; which, in structure much resembling the scale- 

 armour assumed by man for very different objects, 

 is, in fact, intermediate, exactly, between the fur of 

 beasts and the scales of fishes ; having the minute 

 division of the one, and the armour-like symmetry 

 and succession of the other. 



29. Not merely symmetry, observe, but extreme 

 flatness. Feathers are smoothed down, as a field 

 of corn by wind with rain; only the swathes laid 



