RED-TAILED BUZZARD. 15 



rish of St. Elizabeth. The gigantic dimensions as- 

 sumed by the Ceiba, which strike a stranger with 

 astonishment, combined with the smoothness of the 

 trunk, rendered its summit perfectly inaccessible, 

 and prevented particular examination. At length 

 he witnessed the emergence of two young ones, 

 and their first essay at flight. He assures me 

 that he distinctly saw the parent bird, after the 

 first young one had flown a little way, and was 

 beginning to flutter downward, he saw the mother, 

 for the mother surely it was, fly beneath it, and 

 present her back and wings for its support. He 

 cannot say that the young actually rested on, or 

 even touched the parent; perhaps its confidence 

 returned on seeing support so near, so that it 

 managed to reach a dry tree ; when the other little 

 one, invited by the parent, tried its infant wings in 

 like manner. This touching manifestation of paren- 

 tal solicitude is used by the Holy Spirit in the 

 Song of Moses, to illustrate the tenderness of love 

 with which Jehovah led his people Israel about, 

 and cared for them in the wilderness. " As an eagle 

 stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, 

 spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth 

 them on her wings ; so the Lord alone did lead him, 

 and there was no strange God with him." (Deut. 

 xxxii. 12. See also Exod. xix. 4.) 



