BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 145 



strength, or decay of any sense, results in some 

 fatal accident. Death by misadventure, as we 

 call it, is Nature's ordinance, the end designed for 

 a very large majority of her children. Never- 

 theless, animals do sometimes live on without ac- 

 cident to the very end of their term, to fade 

 peacefully away at the last. I have myself wit- 

 nessed such cases in mammals and birds; and one 

 such case, which profoundly impressed me, and 

 is vividly remembered, I will describe. 



One morning in the late summer, while walk- 

 ing in the fields at my home in South America, 

 I noticed a few purple martins, large, beautiful 

 swallows common in that region, engaged, at a 

 considerable height, in the aerial exercises in 

 which they pass so much of their time each day. 

 By and by, one of the birds separated itself from 

 the others, and, circling slowly downward, finally 

 alighted on the ground not far from me. I 

 walked on: but the action of the bird had struck 

 me as unusual and strange, and before going far, 

 I turned and walked back to the spot where it 

 continued sitting on the ground, quite motionless. 

 It made no movement when I approached to 

 within four yards of it; and after I had stood still 



