Mas] AND SYMBOLS. 215 



the signal for a simultaneous rising amongst all the small birds 

 in the neighbourhood, who flock to the place and raise such a 

 commotion as rarely fails to cause the owl to change his quar- 

 ters ; and should he be at such a distance from the thick woods 

 and plantations as to render his reaching them very difficult, or 

 even impossible, while his senses are dimmed by the unwonted 

 glare, the disturbance will sometimes last until the shades of 

 evening put a stop to it by dismissing the little persecutors to 

 their roosting-places. Communities of men who suffer from 

 the proceedings of human marauders, act upon much the same 

 principle. They catch their royal rogue at a disadvantage and 

 then avenge themselves. MU. 



A Good Marksman. 



The Chcetodan restrains, which frequents the shores and 

 mouths of rivers in India, feeds principally on flies and other 

 small winged insects that hover over the waters. When it sees 

 a fly at a distance on any of the plants in the shallow water, it 

 approaches very slowly, and with the utmost caution, coming 

 as much as possible perpendicularly under the object. Then 

 putting its body in an oblique direction, with the mouth and 

 eyes near the surface, it remains for a moment immovable. 

 Having fixed its eyes directly on the insect, it shoots at it a 

 drop of water from its tubular snout, but without showing its 

 mouth above the surface, from whence only the drop seems to 

 rise. This is done with so much dexterity, that though at the 

 distance of four, five, or six feet it seldom fails to bring the fly 

 into the water. p. 



Master Minds. 



The banyan, or sacred fig of India, acquires a prodigious size, 

 not by the enlargement of its individual trunk, but by the mul- 

 tiplication of its trunks in a peculiar manner of growth. As its 

 horizontal limbs spread on all sides, shoots descend from them 

 to the earth, in which they root, and become so many secondary 

 stems, extending their own lateral branches, which in turn send 

 down fresh rooting-shoots, thus ever widening the area of this 



