MEANS OF FLIGHT IN THE OWLS. 27 



they would waste their power on nothing, instead of imparting 

 motion. And, of course, the stronger they are, the stronger 

 must what they are fixed to be, and the larger also to admit of 

 more and more strength. Well, the muscles that move the 

 bird's wing are affixed at their other extremities to its breast- 

 bone and merry-thought, and hence the size and strength of these 

 bones in the Falcon kind with their vigorous, impetuous flight 

 and sweep of wing; and the comparative insignificance^ and 

 weakness of the same parts in the slow-flying, noiseless winged 

 Owlet. If our young friends are disposed to add, in their 

 collection of birds' eggs, the so-called merry-thought of each 

 separate bird to the eggs laid by that bird, they will be apt to 

 learn an interesting and instructive lesson in elementary 

 anatomy. And such a collection may be made to a great extent 

 without much trouble, by almost every one who has the ordinary 

 facilities of a residence in the country at his command. 



Having said so much to show how even the most simple and 



obvious and familiar differences in the bone structure of birds 



suggests, or, if not, confirms the principle of classification of 



birds, and therefore of their eggs, let us now go on to notice 



aur quaint ( ' feathered friends," the Owls, and especially our 



more familiar acquaintance among them. There are other things 



belonging to the Owl family, which our sharp young friend just 



named would have just as little trouble in picking out from a 



heap of similar objects, as in the case of the bones. I mean 



the eggs. The same character, however much they vary in size 



and they do vary vastly in size is common to every one of the eggs. 



They are all white ; they are all very slightly oval, or very nearly 



round, and you cannot tell which is meant to be the big end, and 



which the little. Of course, this being the case, it would be of 



very little use to take up the small space available for illustration 



in this book, with representations of Owls' eggs ; and for the same 



reason, as little as possible will be said in the way of description. 



Any Owl's eggs which are likely to come under the notice of the 



school-boy nest-hunter will tell himagooddeal about their origin, by 



their size and the place they are found in ; and the best picture and 



description possible would not be able to teach him half as much. 



Just as the bones, noticed a page or two back, would be found 



to show that there was a sort of approach to something like a 



noticeable connection between the Harriers and the Owls, so 



the eggs of the former seem to hint at something of the same 



kind. The merry -thought and breast bone of the Harriers are 



vastly less strong and solid than those of the true Falcons; and 



so to speak intermediate in such respects between these and 



those of the truest Owl, while the eggs are colourless or nearly 



so, and so approach again to the Owl type. 



