USES OF BIRDS 301 



wings, the monarch of the air sweeps down upon them like a 

 meteor, and, even before they can think of flight, bears them 

 aloft in his talons. 



Scattered in countless numbers over all the lands and seas, 

 from the poles to the equator, the birds occupy a conspicuous 

 rank in organic creation. They may well be called the guardian- 

 angels of the forest and the field; for though they consume 

 many of the fruits of the earth, yet the damage they may cause 

 is far outweighed by their services in clearing tne woods and 

 meads of hosts of insects, which but for them would gain a 

 fatal preponderance over the vegetable world. Thus indirectly 

 useful to man, they offer him, moreover, the tribute of their 

 soft feathers, their savoury eggs, their nutritious flesh, or their 

 fertilising guano ; and not only largely add to his wealth or to 

 his comfort, but contribute also to his spiritual or imma- 

 terial enjoyments; for without their enlivening presence our 

 groves would be but gloomy solitudes, and even the loveliest 

 landscape would lose half its charms in the absence of the 

 feathered songsters. 



The birds are also the soul, the Life of stormy coasts and 

 lonely islands ; they animate the surf-beaten rocks, and the 

 boundless wastes of the high seas. Far to the north, or in the 

 unfrequented deserts of the Antarctic waters, on shores where 

 no human being dwells, their cries are heard mingling in wild 

 but not inharmonious concert with the hoarse rolling of the 

 surge and the moaning wind ; and hundreds of miles from land 

 the mariner hails with delight the high-soaring frigate-bird, or 

 the indefatigable albatross, winging his flight or hovering with 

 graceful ease over the agitated ocean. 



Even above the highest mountain -tops, where vegetation has 

 long ceased, and the naked rock or snowclad pinnacle alone 

 occupies the dreary scene, man still finds birds to cheer his 

 solitary path ; for the lammergeier and the condor sweep in 

 circles thousands of feet above Chimborazo or Mont Blanc, 

 and high over the giant peaks of Kintschingow and Kintschin- 

 ginga, flocks of wild geese are seen to migrate to unknown regions. 



Thus, wherever he turns, man derives either profit or 

 pleasure from the company of birds; and everywhere, in the 

 woods and in the fields, on the plains and on the mountains, 

 on the coasts and on the high seas, he welcomes them as friends. 



