9 



plumage renders his movements noiseless, and the rustling of the 

 ■win.ffs is never heard, any more than his tread on earth, over which 

 he bounds with amazing sprightliness.'' You know how much 

 importance I have always given, among the fine arts to good 

 dancing. If you think of it, you will find one of the robin's very 

 chief ingratiatory faculties is his dainty and delicate movement, — 

 his footing is featly here and there. Whatever prettiness there may 

 be in his red breast, at his brightest he can always be outshone by 

 a brickbat. But if he is rationally proud of anything about him, 

 I should think a robin must be proud of his legs. Hundreds of 

 birds have longer and more imposing ones — but for real neatness, 

 finish, and precision of action, commend me to his fine little ankles, 

 and fine little feet ; this long stilted process, as you know, corres- 

 ponding to our ankle-bone, commend me, I say, to the robin for 

 use of his ankles -he is, of all birds, the pre-eminent and character- 

 istic Hopper ; None other so light, so pert, or so swift." Talking 

 of the feathers " I have no doubt the Darwinian theory on thq 

 subject is that the feathers of birds once stuck up all erect, like the 

 bristles of a brush, and have only been blown flat by continual 

 flying. Nay, we might even sufficiently represent the general 

 manner of conclusion in the Darwinian system by the statement 

 that if you fasten a hair brush to a mill-wheel, with the handle 

 forward, so as to develop itself into a neck by moving always in 

 the same direction, and within continual hearing of a steam 

 whistle, after a certain number of revolutions the hair brush will 

 fall in love with the whistle ; they will marry, lay an egg, and the 

 produce will be a nightingale." Again " let us examine a feather 

 from his breast. I said, just now, he might be at once outshone 

 by a brickbat. Indeed, the day before yesterday, sleeping at Lich- 

 field, and seeing, the first thing when I woke in the morning (for 

 I never put down the blinds of my bedroom windows), the not un- 

 common sight in an English country town of an entire house front 

 of very neat, and very flat, and very red bricks, with very exactly 

 squared square windows in it ; and not feeling myself in any wise 

 gratified or improved by the spectacle, I was thinking how in this, 

 as in all other good, the too much destroyed all. The breadth of 

 a robin's breast in brick-red is delicious, but a whole house front 

 of brick-red, as vivid, is alarming. And yet one cannot generalize 

 even that trite moral with any safety — for infinite breadth of green 

 is delightful, however green ; and of sea or sky, however blue. 

 You must note, however, that the robin's charm is greatly helped 

 by the pretty space of grey plumage which separates the red from 

 the brown back, and sets it off to ifs best advantage. There is no 

 great brilliancy in it, even so relieved ; only the finish of it is ex- 

 quisite. If you separate a single feather, you will find it more like 

 a transparent hollow shell than a feather (so delicately rounded the 



