THE OVEN-BIRD. 259 



their being that they burst forth with a renewed and redundant beauty, and repeat the 

 same great lesson to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. 



It is evident that song, form, colour and odour are conductors of some subtle and most 

 powerful influence, which is inhaled into the inmost nature of the young and tender 

 beings now being moulded into their matured development, and imbues and inter- 

 penetrates their dual nature with the same element of love. For although there may be 

 many modes of affecting our senses, through touch, or taste, or scent, or sight, or hearing, 

 all these senses must be reduced to one principal faculty of perception, which in human 

 beings is reached through various channels of communication with the outer world. It 

 is not the eye that sees nor the ear that hears, for they exist as perfectly in the lifeless 

 corpse as in the animated and active human form ; but the eye and the ear are only the 

 window and the door, through which the inmost sensual faculty inherent in the soul is 

 enabled to communicate with things that are of a grosser and less ethereal nature than itself. 



At times we are all so exalted that we become dimly conscious that there are other 

 ways of affecting our perceptive nature than through those means which we commonly 

 call the five senses. Who has not conversed without a word spoken on either side ? 

 Who, by the mystical workings of their inmost nature, has not perceived the presence of a 

 loving and sympathising friend, or a deadly and vengeful foe, before sight or hearing has 

 given any premonition of his approach ? Sometimes the senses perform each other's duty, 

 and we are hardly conscious to which of them we owe the impression that is being made 

 upon our mind. If for example we read a book, we hear the words as if uttered in 

 sound ; while, if we listen to conversation, the articulate sounds arrange themselves in 

 alphabetical form before our mental eye, ready to be placed on paper if needed. 



WE now arrive at the large family of the CEKTHID^E, or Creepers ; a family which 

 includes many birds of very different forms, and which can only be known to belong to 

 it by their anatomical structure. In fact, the Creepers may be considered as analogous 

 among birds to the antelopes among mammalia, and be considered as a " refuge for the 

 destitute," formed for the purpose of receiving all the slender-billed birds which cannot 

 find accommodation in any other more definite family. 



The Certhidae are mostly small birds, but there is one notable exception in the person 

 of the celebrated lyre-bird of Australia. Many of them are good songsters, and they all 

 feed chiefly upon insects, which they pick out of the bark of trees or unearth from the 

 soil. The beak is rather long and slender, except perhaps in the nuthatch, which, although 

 comparatively long, is possessed of great strength ; and there is always a curve more or 

 less marked. The beak is always sharp at its extremity, and the nostrils are placed in a 

 little groove at the base of the bill, and defended by a membranous scale. The feet are, 

 although slender in several species, possessed of remarkable strength, and furnished with 

 sharp round claws, in order to enable the birds to cling to the tree-trunks in which they 

 find their food. 



The OVEN-BIRDS derive their name from the peculiar form of their nests. 



The edifice, for it fully deserves that name, is of considerable dimensions when 

 compared with the small size of its architect, and is built in the shape of a dome, the 

 entrance being on one side, so as to present a decided resemblance to an ordinary oven. 

 The walls of the nest are fully an inch in thickness, and the materials of which the 

 structure is composed are clay, grass, and various kinds of vegetable substances, which 

 are woven and plastered together in so workmanlike a manner, that the nest is quite 

 hard and firm when the clay has been dried in the sun. The bird seems to be conscious 

 of the security of its nest, for it takes no pains to conceal its habitation, but builds 

 openly upon some exposed spot, such as the large leafless branch of a tree, the top of 

 palings, or even the interior of houses or barns. 



The Oven-bird is not content with barely building this curious domed structure, but 

 adds to its security by separating it into two parts, by means of a partition reaching 

 nearly to the roof, the eggs being placed in the inner chamber. The bed on which the 

 egga are placed consists mostly of feathers and soft grasses. The number of the eggs is 

 generally about four. 



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