314 THE WHITE STORK. [CHAP. vi. 



living birds to find scientific naturalists (for whom we 

 entertain all due respect) recommending us to patronize 

 and protect certain species, as if they had no instinc- 

 tive will of their own. We are to encourage this, and 

 domesticate that, exactly as we choose to domesticate and 

 encourage them : their consent to the arrangement is 

 taken for granted, although we have plenty of hints 

 that they do make a point of being consulted. We 

 have condescendingly permitted many of the Waders 

 to approach us in confidence ; but the Bittern still 

 prefers his swamps to any comforts that we can offer 

 him. So that a general rule is as inapplicable to the 

 Grallatores as to the gallinaceous birds, or, to the 

 entire race of man and woman kind. 



A great deal both of this mathematical distribution of 

 the animate creation into " circles," and of precise series- 

 making in Natural History, is very absurd, if we look 

 at it closely. " With the Penguins, Nature is about to 

 pass from the birds to the fishes." How pass ? Change 

 the feathered fowl itself to a scaly swimmer ? modify 

 lungs into gills, flappers into fins ? Beautiful imagina- 

 tions ! perhaps unreasonable talk. There is certainly 

 in each a common adaptation to the same element, and 

 therefore some resemblance and analogy; but where 

 can we show the passage, or act of transition ? And 

 the change of natural instincts is often as difficult to 

 demonstrate as the metamorphosis of bodily form. 

 The leopard cannot change his spots (even though he 

 be a black leopard) nor the Ethiopian his skin : the 

 sow returns to her wallowing in the mire. Even all 

 Waders are not alike in disposition ; nor can we make 

 them so. 



The White Stork appears to be one of the most 



