ii8 



Birds of the Primeval World. 



in the matter as to *' the errors of an un- 

 disciplined youth, with more sail than bal- 

 last, and often led by imagination." 



Under bail for his offenses, bitterly dis- 

 posed to indulge in further satires, discon- 

 tented with himself and the conditions 

 which he sought in vain to escape, he con- 

 ceived the idea of emigrating to the United 

 States and beginning life anew. The idea 

 once entertained took firm hold of him, 



and animated by a sufficiently powerful 

 motive, he set to work on his loom with a 

 will, and with the kind assistance of friends 

 was soon in possession of the means to pay 

 his passage to the promised land, for which 

 he set out with his nephew William Dun- 

 can, a lad of sixteen, on May 23, 1794, 

 and, after a voyage of twenty-two days, 

 reached the land where he imagined all his 

 wrongs would cease. 



BIRDS OF THE PRIMEVAL WORLD. 



SOME of our grandfathers and grand- 

 mothers were very estimable people; 

 in fact, they are so to this day; but it is 

 astonishing what a lot of things there are 

 that they knew nothing about. Our fathers 

 and mothers have learnt and found out so 

 many things that they sometimes talk as if 

 they knew almost everything, but between 

 you and me, if the truth were only known, 

 it would be possible to write a whole book 

 about the things they know nothing about, 

 and I shouldn't be a bit surprised if the 

 present boys and girls were to grow up, 

 and open their eyes, and find out a lot of 

 those things and turn out to be the clever- 

 est folks that ever lived. 



The way things go on in this world is 

 just a riddle, and some people are much 

 sharper at finding out riddles than others, 

 and every now and then one of these sharp 

 fellows finds out one of Nature's riddles, 

 and astonishes people; for when a riddle 

 is once found out, you can't help feeling 

 that the answer is a right one. 



Now I want to tell you about some very 

 extraordinary birds that lived ever so long 

 ago; I would not like to say how many 

 thousands of years, because somebody 

 would be sure to jump up and say the 

 world wasn't made then, and then some- 

 body else would be sure to jump up with a 

 sneer, and ask him how long he thought it 



took Niagara to cut through a mile of rock? 

 No, it's no good disputing about how long 

 ago, and it's no particular matter. If you 

 see an eagle soaring high aloft, you know 

 that he's a long way off without measuring 

 the distance, and so about those birds I 

 was speaking of, it is quite safe to say that 

 "they lived ever so long ago." Well, these 

 birds used to live in the sea, some of them 

 had no wings and got their living by div- 

 ing, or, as one might say, by divers' means, 

 and others had long wings like gulls; but 

 the remarkable thing that distinguished 

 them from any birds you ever saw was 

 that, instead of beaks, they had jaws armed 

 with long rows of teeth like a lizard or a 

 crocodile. There can be no doubt about 

 the birds having lived at the time I speak 

 of, because their bones have been found, 

 and their jaws with the teeth in them, and 

 there couldn't be any better evidence than 

 that. What appears stranger still is that 

 all the remains of birds found in that page 

 of the world's history had lizards' jaws and 

 teeth, and, when you turn back the leaves 

 still further (I suppose you know that the 

 world's history is written on thick sheets 

 of rock), there were no birds in the world 

 at all, nothing to speak of in fact except 

 lizards in great variety, and some of these, 

 both small and large, walked on their hind 

 legs, and stretched out their long necks in 



