KIDD'’S OWN JOURNAL. 
contracting itself like the swan’s foot, and 
acquiring fresh impetus by again expanding, 
shall replace the wheel of the steam-boat. 
The swan is justly considered as the model 
of fathers ; his fidelity perhaps is not live- 
long, but his paternal tenderness has a claim 
to be quoted as without a parallel. He 
never considers the number or the strength 
of the enemies which threaten the safety of 
his family. He rushes upon them furiously, 
and attacks with equal ferocity, man, dog, or 
horse. He awaits the eagle without flinch- 
ing; his beak pointing, and set like a spring. 
Striking and thrusting, both, he soon stuns 
his adversary, and drives him discomfited 
away. 
He does net hide his nest, being ready to 
defend it ; and the fox, so cunning, so greedy 
after young birds, dares not even approach 
his progeny. Unfortunately, his caprices 
expose him to desperate conflicts. <A fight 
between swans is almost always a mortal 
combat; but the quarrel is not decided in a 
day. These creatures are tenacious of life. 
Strength and rage (alone) do not enable them 
to destroy each other. A _ considerable 
degree of skill, and of wrestling skill, is also 
required. The death-stroke consists in 
twisting the enemy’s neck in his vertebre ; 
and in holding it bent and sunk under water 
until the victim expires from suffocation. ‘I 
embrace my rival, but it is to strangle him,” 
say the swans; unconsciously turning into a 
parody the celebrated line of Nero. 
It was difficult not to lend to what was 
already so rich. On this account, the 
Greeks, who were naturally very generons, 
assigned to the swan a tender and melan- 
choly voice; more plaintive and flute-like 
than that of the nightingale. The Greek 
fable was excusable, as proceeding from their 
love of ideal perfection. To extenuate it, 
they said the melodious voice with which 
they had gifted the swan, was heard but once 
during the life of the bird—at the hour pre- 
ceding his death. The fable succeeded, be- 
cause it was as pretty as are all Greek fables ; 
but now we have had the advantage of it, I 
see no longer any use in concealing the truth. 
The swan has noé a more melodious voice 
than the nightingale. He clatters like the 
stork, and alas! he gabbles like the goose, his 
nearest relative. Nor is the hour in which 
he makes the most noise, that preceding his 
death; but rather, that which follows the 
hatching of his young. The ancients had 
however aiready successfully refuted the 
fable. Pythagoras, who was a geometrician, 
naturally admitted the version of the death- 
song; he did even more. He proved, that 
its sweetness was to be attributed to the 
length of the circuit which the vital spark 
of the bird had to make, ere it could escape 
from his body through his long neck! But 


147 
Pliny successfully disputed the opinion of 
the geometrician ; and the ingenious explana- 
tion relative to the influence of the dimen- 
sions of the tracheal artery of the swan, upon 
the sweetness of his vocal powers, necessarily 
fell before the fact that he did not possess 
any! Previous to Pliny, Aristotle had made 
a praiseworthy concession to truth. He still 
maintained that the swans of the African sea 
sang agreeably; but he also affirmed that the 
exercise was in no way injurious to their 
health, and that it did not foretell their 
death. 
Three plagues exist in the world, which 
have committed their ravages with impunity 
for an immense length of time,—the cholera, 
or black plague, originating in India; the 
plague strictly so called, originating in 
Egypt; the vyellow-fever, originating in 
America. 
A good police regulation respecting burials 
would remedy the two first, in six months. 
The third, undeniably the most difficult to 
subdue, would not hold out ten years against 
the judiciously-combined effects of the sluice 
(écluse de chasse), and—the Swan. 
FORESTIERA, 
THERE’S ONLY ONE RIGHT PATH,— 
THE PATH OF DUTY. 
BY ANN SMITH. 
THERE is a path which often lies 
Through dangers and perplexities, 
Avoided by the many ; 
And yet for those who would possess 
The realms of endless happiness, 
The nearest path of any. 
My study ’tis in simple rhyme, 
As others in a strain sublime, 
To deck with love and beauty 
This “narrow path,” that to the skies 
In gradual ascent doth rise— 
The path of Christian Duty. 
Another path may soon be found, 
With sweet, but fading flow’rets crown’d, 
To lnre us from the right : 
This path is laid in fairy lands, 
And Pleasure at the entrance stands 
To beckon and invite. 
So well the syren plays her part, 
Luring the unsuspecting heart 
To its untimely doom,— 
That thousands of the young and gay, 
Dazzled by the deceptive ray, 
Her votaries become, 
A warning to my readers all, 
Before she lets the curtain fall, 
The moral Muse would give,— 
Those who will duty’s path forsake, - 
Yor interest, or for pleasure’s sake, 
IN PEACE SHALL NEVER LIVE! 

