CHAPTER X 



BIRDS AND THEIR BEAUTY PARLOURS 



Birds, the free tenants of earth, air, and ocean. 

 Their forms all symmetry, their motions grace. 

 In plumage delicate and beautiful. 

 Thick without burthen, close as fish's scales. 

 Or loose as full-glown poppies on the gale; 

 With wings that seem as they'd a soul within them. 

 They bear their owners with such sweet enchantment. 



— Montgomery. 



THERE are no other characteristics of birds 

 so nearly resembling human beings as those 

 which pertain to the art of beauty. They seem to 

 be under the dominion of the same laws and de- 

 sires, seek companionship, love, — give evidences of 

 all the human passions — ^jealousy, hatred, ambition; 

 are great rivals in many ways, and always strive to 

 appear at their best. This is true of the males quite 

 as much as of the females. 



If the female appears vain, surely the male is 

 doubly so, and even his barber work is never neg- 

 lected. Birds act as their own barbers — never 

 trusting such important duties to another. They 



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