"Behold the Birds of the Air" 75 



that a swarm of fresh complications throw all our 

 imagined machinery out of gear. The first developed 

 Woodcock, for instance, must have had a host of kindred 

 developed within one degree of himself. On Darwinian 

 principles these must either have subsequently exactly 

 followed his example, having hitherto failed exactly to 

 follow it, or, failing to do so, must have been absolutely 

 exterminated by competition with him and his progeny. 

 Can we imagine that each and all of the minute artistic 

 touches already described are so important to the bird's 

 well-being, that their absence means a sentence of death? 

 And if it does not, how comes it that this, and every 

 other family of birds and beasts and plants, is not 

 surrounded with a fringe of poor relations who have not 

 succeeded in acquiring all its minor characteristics ? Yet 

 each species stands apart, as sharply defined as if 

 struck from one mint. " Sports" there indeed may be 

 within a species albinoes or negroes or what not but 

 these do not perpetuate their peculiarities. Albino birds, 

 it is said, never find mates, and the same is probably true 

 of those tending to exceptional blackness. What we do 

 not find is perpetuation of divergences from the exact 

 specific type, and it is the absence of this which, on 

 Darwinian principles, seems inexplicable. 



In scientific investigations, as we are often told, the 

 only sound mode of procedure is to see what hypothesis 

 will fit the facts, and to prefer that which appears best 

 to satisfy this requirement. If this be really done, can 

 there be any doubt as to the nature of that force to 

 which the phenomena we meet must ultimately be 

 attributed ? Has any answer but one been ever given to 

 the straightforward question of Bishop Butler: "Will 

 any man in his senses say that it is less difficult to con- 

 ceive how the world came to be, and to continue as it is, 

 without, than with, an intelligent author and governor of 

 it ? " I am much mistaken if the science whereof I 

 have been speaking shall not lead him who studies it by 

 methods truly scientific to bid the objects of his study 

 to join with him in the glory of their Maker, recognizing, 



