30 



LOVE S MEINIE. 



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 ex- 

 treme flatness. Feathers are smoothed down, 

 as a field of corn by wind with rain ; only the 

 swathes laid in beautiful order. They are fur, 

 so structurally placed as to imply, and submit 

 to, the perpetually swift forward motion. In 

 fact, I have no doubt the Darwinian theory on 

 the subject is that the feathers of birds once 

 stuck up all erect, like the bristles of a brush, 

 and have only been blown flat by continual 

 flying. 



Nay, we might even sufficiently represent 

 the general manner of conclusion in the 

 Darwinian system by the statement that if you 

 fasten a hair-brush to a mill-wheel, with the 

 handle forward, so as to develop itself into a 

 neck by moving alwa3^s in the same direction, 

 and within continual hearing of a steam-whistle. 



