

BIRDS OF PALESTINE AND PANAMA COMPARED. 351 
a subject so full of charms. It is not mere practical useful- 
ness that entitles this or that production to our notice; the 
graceful and the beautiful have place in nature, prominent 
and unquestioned, and if we but listen a moment, we shall 
hear the pulsations of the inner heart that respond to them, 
beat for beat. And we shall do well to heed it, and not be 
angry with ourselves if, stealing a brief space now and then 
from sterner employments, we give ourselves to the contem- 
plation and enjoyment of that generous and spiritual delight 
wherewith a bountiful Creator plainly designs to refresh the 
Weary and jaded spirit. We cannot overlook mere beauty 
here, for the flowers tell us 
“ Uselessness divinest, 
Of a use the finest, 
Painteth us, the teachers of the end of use; 
Travellers, weary eyed, 
Bless us, far and wide; 
Unto sick and prisoned thoughts we give sudden truce, 
a poor town-window 
Loves its sickliest planting, 
But its wall speaks loftier truth than Babylonian vaunting.” 

THE BIRDS OF PALESTINE AND PANAMA 
COMPARED. 
BY EDWARD D. COPE. 
Tr 
: is only lately that means of viewing any class of ani- 
ma 
» Which the Creator planted in the Holy Land, have been 
put at our disposal. As it is in the region which appears to 
have been selected as the first residence of man, an idea of 
superiority naturally attaches to its products; though we 
W, indeed, that all rich lands,—such as “flow with milk 
ad honey »”—are prolific of the many outbirths of his mani- 
fold laws, 
Bo little has this anciently known region been the field of 
“entific study, that, excepting among plants, our knowl- - 
