BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 119 



all the faculties, is so important that probably in 

 ninety-nine cases in a hundred any falling off in 

 strength, or decay of any sense, results in some 

 fatal accident. Death by misadventure, as we call 

 it, is Nature's ordinance, the end designed for a 

 very large majority of her children. Nevertheless, 

 animals do sometimes live on without accident to 

 the very end of their term, to fade peacefully away 

 at the last. I have myself witnessed such cases in 

 mammals and birds ; and one such case, which 

 profoundly impressed me, and is vividly remembered, 

 I will describe. One morning in the late summer, 

 while walking in the fields at my home in South 

 America, I noticed a few purple martins, large, 

 beautiful swallows common in that region, engaged, 

 at a considerable height, in the aerial exercises in 

 which they pass so much of their time each day. 

 By and by one of the birds separated itself from 

 the others, and, circhng slowly downward, finally 

 alighted on the ground not far from me. I walked 

 on ; but the action of the bird had struck me as 

 unusual and strange, and before going far, I turned 

 and walked back to the spot where it continued 

 sitting on the ground, quite motionless. It made 

 no movement when I approached to within four 

 yards of it ; and after I had stood still at that distance 

 for a minute or so, attentively regarding it, I saw it 

 put out one wing and turn over on its side. I at once 



