2 2 love's meinie. 



economical and practical life, is its beak. 

 The beak, therefore, is at once its sword, 

 its carpenter's tool-box, and its dressing- 

 case ; partly also its musical instrument ; all 

 this besides its function of seizing and pre- 

 paring the food, in which functions alone it 

 has to be a trap, carving-knife, and teeth, all 

 in one. 



21. It is this need of the beak's being a 

 mechanical tool which chiefly regulates the 

 form of a bird's face, as opposed to a four- 

 footed animal's. If the question of food were 

 the only one, we might wonder why there 

 were not more four-footed creatures living 

 on seeds than there are ; or why those that 

 do — field-mice and the like — have not beaks 

 instead of teeth. But the fact is that a bird's 

 beak is by no means a perfect eating or food- 

 seizing instrument. A squirrel is far more 

 dexterous with a nut than a cockatoo ; and 

 a dog manages a bone incomparably better 

 than an eagle. But the beak has to do so 

 much more! Pruning feathers, building nests, 

 and the incessant discipline in miHtary arts, 

 are all to be thought of, as much as feeding. 



Soldiership, especially, is a much more 



