THE FIRST FLUTTERINGS 
OF THE WING. 
THERE is never a man, unlettered, ignorant, exhausted, 
insensible, who can deny himself a sentiment of rever- 
ence, I might almost say of terror, on entering the 
halls of our Museum of Natural History. 
No foreign collection, as far as my knowledge ex- 
tends, produces this impression. 
Others, undoubtedly, as the superb museum of 
Leyden, are richer in particular branches; but none are 
more complete, none more harmonious. This sublime harmony 
is felt instinctively; it imposes and seizes on the mind. The 
inattentive traveller, the chance visitor, is unwillingly affected; 
he pauses, and he dreams. In the presence of this vast enigma, of 
this immense hieroglyph which for the first time is displayed before 
him, he may consider himself fortunate if he can read a character or 
