THE SWIFT 221 



or even mounted a ladder, in his life. It was a 

 " bold boy" a " bold bad boy," he probably thought 

 him and not the old naturalist himself, who 

 climbed the "beech in Selborne Hanger, though 

 standing on so steep and dizzy a situation," on 

 which a pair of honey-buzzards had built their 

 nest, and who brought down the one egg that was 

 in it. He never dilates upon the beauty or the 

 charm of the eggs of a bird of prey as you see 

 them lying in the nest, when, after a weary struggle 

 upwards, you are at length able to look down at 

 them from above ; and that I feel sure he must 

 have done, had he ever seen them therein, for it is 

 one of the crowning joys of the lover of birds. But 

 all that he could do on terra firma> and infinitely 

 more than any one else had ever done before, or has 

 done since, he did. In his eyes and well indeed is 

 it for our own over-self-appreciation that there are 

 some people who take that view man was one of 

 the least important and least interesting of animals. 

 The biography of his old tortoise, " Timothy," 

 interested him far more than the biography of 

 " Timothy's " equally noteworthy contemporaries, 

 General Clive and General Wolfe, George 

 Washington and the Earl of Chatham. The fall 

 of Quebec was a matter of less moment in his eyes 



