138 SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Ore 



posed of many things which are small." In further illustration 

 of the same truth are the words of Young, 



"Sands form the mountain, moments make the year." 



T. 



Great Tyrants sometimes Succumb to Small Heroes. 



The raptores are daring, cruel, and strong, yet, like other 

 tyrants, they can be frightened. We read in Wilson that a 

 tiny bird, a fly-catcher, such as the purple martin, will hunt the 

 great black eagle, pursue it, harass it, banish it from its district, 

 give it not a moment's repose. It is a truly extraordinary spec- 

 tacle to see this little hero adding all his weight to his strength 

 that he may make the greater impression, rise and let himself 

 drop from the clouds on the back of the large robber, mount 

 without letting go, and prick him forward with his beak in lieu 

 of a spur. David in his dealings with Goliath, and other men 

 in all lands and times, show us that in the human family, as 

 among the feathered tribes, great tyrants will often succumb to 

 small heroes. T. B. 



The Greatest Good occasioning the Greatest Evil. 



By universal consent religion is man's greatest blessing ; and 

 water is the greatest boon of the thirsty all the world over. 

 Yet what a confirmation both religion and water afford of the 

 fact that the greatest good may occasion the greatest evil ! 

 Take, first of all, the illustration supplied by the water, and in 

 the words of Oliver Goldsmith. In those burning countries 

 where the sun dries up every brook for hundreds of miles round, 

 when what had the appearance of a great river in the rainy 

 season becomes, in the summer, one dreary bed of sand, a lake 

 that is never dry, or a brook that is perennial, is considered by 

 every animal as the greatest convenience of Nature. As to food, 

 the luxuriant landscape supplies that in sufficient abundance ; it 

 is the want of water that all animals endeavour to remove, and 

 inwardly parched by the heat of the climate, traverse whole 

 deserts to find out a spring. When they have discovered this, 

 no dangers can deter them from attempting to slake their thirst. 

 Thus the neighbourhood of a rivulet in the heart of the tropical 

 continents is generally the place where all the hostile tribes of 



