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BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
obtain pairs of all the various species with which 
to restock the earth, or, at all events, England, 
with its vanished feathered inhabitants. Marvel- 
lous are the adventures they encounter on the 
way, especially when, approaching their destina- 
tion, they pass through the purgatory of souls of 
those who in the flesh were persecutors of the 
race of birds. From his outlook on an iceberg, the 
poet descries a stupendous whirlwind of madly 
driven snowflakes ; but the flying white particles 
are souls, as he discovers later, when coming into 
the circle the travellers encounter, and have speech 
with, some of them — the fashionable dame who 
once decorated herself with the spoils of beautiful 
slain birds; the French cook everlastingly tor- 
mented with the smell of roasting larks ; and the 
bird-catcher led on and on by the delusive pee-weet- 
weet of the lapwing, whose eggs (worth a shilling 
each in London town), concealed in some windy 
hollow, he vainly seeks for ever. Still more 
fantastic and mirth-moving grows the adventure 
when the walls of the paradise are at length 
reached, and. the visitors knock loudly at the 
portal, formed by a gigantic roc's egg, and when 
the portentous ancient young roc comes forth and 
warns the rash intruders back, but is presently 
seduced into a long political argument, and, finally, 
so much flattered by the poet's veneration for 
