316 CRUELTY OF IGNORANCE. [CHAP. vi. 



throwing down to them a marrow-hone, charged with 

 gunpowder, and carrying inside a lighted match. The 

 point of this fun comes when the explosion takes place 

 within the stomach of the hird. We may be excused 

 for blowing up a whale with a congreve rocket, as a less 

 hazardous, and, perhaps, more merciful mode of se- 

 curing our prey ; but such barbarity to an inoffensive 

 Stork is on a par with the cruelty of the blacksmith, 

 who, for a wager, induced a duck voluntarily to swallow, 

 in its hasty greediness, a piece of red-hot iron that he 

 tossed to it among some lumps of raw meat. It is 

 surprising how cruel thoughtless and ignorant people 

 can be. A sergeant returned from India has told me 

 with high glee, that one of his amusements there was 

 to bore a smallish hole in a few cocoa-nuts, partly fill 

 them with sugar, and throw them on the ground in 

 the woods. The monkeys would contrive to insert 

 their hands after the bait, and while unable to disen- 

 tangle themselves, were whipped to death by the holiday- 

 makers. And yet this man professed to be a sincerely 

 religious person ; only he forgot that monkeys could 

 feel like himself. This digression may be mal-a-propos, 

 and yet productive of good in the end. 



Creatures of so strange an aspect as the Waders, 

 with such oddly-formed members, are yet provided with 

 these curiously-modified limbs for a special purpose. If 

 any one feature had been made less exaggerated, less 

 ridiculous to the vulgar eye than it is, the united work- 

 ing together of all to one end, viz. the sustenance of 

 the bird, would to that degree have failed. When a 

 Heron or a Stork alights upon a marsh, fishes and frogs 

 may well call out, like little Red Riding Hood at the 

 sight of the Wolf, " What are your great flapping wings 



