THE TECHNOLOGIST. [July 1, 1865. 



528 THE PROGRESS OF 



ploughing match on his grounds, and have in consequence summoned 

 their brethren to a Diet of Worms. How unconcerned they look, as if 

 worms were nothing to them ! How grave as if it were an ecclesiasti- 

 cal convocation, and ^ they had no thoughts of the earth, earthy ! Yet 

 point a gun, or anything like it towards them, and in a moment the 

 very birds whose backs seem turned to you will give a flutter of their 

 wings, which appears an involuntary struggle, but in reality is as 

 significant a danger-signal as a red flag on a railway, and is sufficient 

 to clear the field. Nor are those wise crows exceptionally wise. All 

 their feathered brethren have made a sacred compact that never with 

 their consent shall salt be put on their living tails, and there are not 

 many unfeathered bipeds who will boast of having salted them. The 

 sparrows are not so idle that they do not pass the word to each other 

 when crumbs are falling thick from some rich man's table. The doves 

 though they look so innocent, do not spend all their time in cooing 

 love songs and cradle-lullabies, or in preening their rainbow feathers. 

 They have a ' Mark Lane Express ' of their own, and by a peck, or a 

 ruffle of their feathers, can direct each other to the fields where the 

 autumn wheat is germinating best, or the gardens where the green peas 

 are fullest and sweetest. 



The first bird that awakes in the branches quivers its feathers, and 

 in a moment all join in chaunting their Te Deuin. The lark takes up 

 the parable of the Prodigal Son, and sings again his lesson for the day, 

 " I will arise and go to my Eather;" and the birds obedient to the 

 signal join in their Hallelujah chorus, and separate to their labour till 

 the nightingale summons them to the evening song. And does not the 

 " stork in the heaven know her appointed times, and the turtle and the 

 crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming ? " and where 

 the carcase is, are not in some wondrous way the eagles gathered 

 together ? 



I speak specially of birds because they are so swift and so vocal, 

 that least of all creatures, excepting always their fellow-vocalists and 

 fliers, the insects, they might seem to need a means of transmitting 

 intelligence to a distance by a system of signals ; and yet none use it 

 more. Consider only the swallows who have recently been holding 

 their annual autumn reviews, before marching into winter — or rather 

 new summer quarters. I have seen some of them, as you may have 

 done, perched in long rows on the telegraph-wires, and have fancied 

 them saying, as they swayed their graceful bodies up and down, and 

 wagged their pretty heads : — " These r poor, foolish men with their 

 nonsensical wires, a clumsy imitation of the spider's webs, what would 

 they not give to know our telegraphic system ! But their hearts are 

 so wicked, that as one of themselves confesses, God has given them 

 speech to conceal their thoughts ; so, with a flutter of thanks for these 

 convenient perches, let us be glad it is not so with us, and bid them 

 farewell." 



