20 
SPECIAL CLAIMS ON OUR INTEREST. 
or cleave the air with rushing pinions, as if bent on some mission 
of urgent speed I The facility and elegance of their movements is 
not less admirable than the beauty of their form. 
But everything about the birds seems adapted to engage our interest. 
Many of them attract by the glowing colours of their plumage, which, 
in exquisite brilliancy and subtle harmony, surpass the finest efforts 
of human artists. Others charm by the sweetness of their song, 
which is always distinct and characteristic— so that the notes of the 
lark are easily distinguished fr-om tliose of the blackbird. Others 
invite attention by the marvellous ingenuity displayed in the con- 
struction of their nests; others, by the care and foresight with which 
they provide for their oftspring. Then the variety of family and sub- 
family is marvellously rich. Some species are so tender and frail as to 
appeal at once to our sympathies and command our protection ; others 
are so fierce and strong as to compel our admiration and surprise. We 
pass from the eagle clutching a kid or lamb in his talons, and bearing 
it away to his rock-built eyrie, to the tin}' wren hopping in and out 
of le&fy bush with timid glance ; or the humming-bird, which might 
lose himself in the cup of a tulip ! We pass from the birds that build 
their nests high among the foliage of lofty forest-trees, to those that are 
fain to conceal their little houses in the furrows of the corn-field or 
behind hoar and mossy fragments of stone. The diversity in their 
food is not less remarkable. The swallow lives upon insects which 
it catches on the winti' ; the soui-mancra feeds on the honied stores of 
beauteous flowers; the toucan banquets on the fruits of the primeval 
forests ; the hoaitzin lives on the leaves of a particular species of 
arum ; the woodpecker on the insects which lie concealed beneath 
the bark of the trunks of aged trees; the francolin on worms and 
berries and bulbous roots ; while the vulture feeds on carrion ; the 
avocet on moUusca and sea-worms ; and the diver upon fish. The 
majority of birds, however, are either insectivorous or frugivorous; 
but even here a great variousness prevails. Some pursue the insects 
that flutter to and fro in the shade of night ; others, those which 
bask in the sunny noon. Some delight in shelly fruits, which they 
break open with powerful bill ; others in fruit of a pulpy char- 
