CHAPTER XXXII. 



Aves {Birds). 



Everybody loves Birds. The pinafored schoolboy dares 

 the awful frown of the pedagogue, and his birch too, that 

 he may peer into the brambles and hedgerow-trees, for the 

 callow young which he desires to rear. The fair maiden 

 teaches her pet canary to hop on her finger and take his 

 sugar from her own sweet lips, bestowing on him the kisses 

 which many a bigger biped would be proud to share. The 

 solitary w ? eaver, gray with premature age induced by cease- 

 less toil, hangs his thrush in wicker outside his shattered 

 casement, and throws his shuttle more blithely as he listens 

 to the mellow notes which carry him back to the fields and 

 groves of his boyhood. The weather-beaten sailor greets 

 the little land-bird with a hearty welcome, that flutters on 

 feeble wing around his ship, clinging to the shrouds ana 1 

 stays, and loves the tiny messenger that tells him of his 

 approach to his native shore. The world's care must have 

 indurated that heart, indeed, that can hear without a gush 

 of emotion the sweet melody of a singing-bird ! 

 «h We must not, however, just now consider the bird as a 

 loveable little pet, but look at it physiologically as an 

 animal — as one of the meshes in the grand net-work of 

 organic existence. We call it a biped, but structurally a 



