on the earth like dogs or horses, but soared far higher into the air than a boy's kite, and could move through it at the rate of forty, or sixty, or perhaps, a hundred miles an hour. How surprised we should all be at this wonderful story!

2. And if we believed the traveler, how eagerly would we listen to the description of animals, that instead of being clothed with scales like a fish, or hair like a cow, had the body covered with feathers; and instead of having two fore-legs, like our common animals, had the limbs of the forepart of the body of a different shape, and so contrived, that by their movements the creature was not only sustained in the air, but propelled rapidly forward!

3. If you had heard these wonderful facts for the first time, and were talking about these strange unknown animals, all would infer that they must be differently formed from beasts or fishes, and would try to imagine how they were made. Perhaps one might say, "Their bones must be very strong, for unless they were so, they could not take such long flights." But another might say, "No; if their bones were very strong, they would be very heavy, and then the bird would not be able to fly at all; the bones, I think, should be very light."

4. Still another might say, "It would not be enough that they should be both strong and light at the same time, if that be possible, but the cords or muscles, by which the bones are moved, must be so made as to work with vigor and effect." But then a fourth might exclaim,

"All this would not be sufficient; for if I run for a quarter of a mile I am out of breath: how can birds go at so great a rate and for so long a time?"

5. These several points of inquiry can be answered only by actual examination of a bird. It will then be found

that the bones do combine the two qualities of lightness and strength. They do so, not only because of the material of which they are composed, but also because of the manner in which they are severally shaped and united.

6. The muscles, also, will be found to be so formed and so placed that they act with the greatest possible advantage; and with regard to the breathing, there is an adaptation expressly suited to the wants and habits of these creatures. The air from the wind-pipe passes not only into the lungs, but from them into cavities or air-cells, situated in different parts of the body. The blood is thus more freely exposed to the air than it is in other warm-blooded animals; the body is rendered more light and buoyant, and increased vigor is given to every part of the frame.

7. The air penetrates even into the bones, so that in birds of rapid or powerful flight, the hollow part in the center of the bone is filled, not with marrow, but with air. If an architect, accustomed, in planning his buildings, to calculate in what way he could shape his timbers so as to combine the greatest lightness with the greatest strength, were to examine the framework of the bones of a bird, he would find all his contrivances there surpassed.

8. The blood of birds is not cold, like that of a frog or a fish, but owing to their mode of breathing, is warmer than that of our common domestic animals. This heat would soon pass away from birds as they fly through the air or swim in the water, unless their bodies had some kind of covering to enable them to retain it. And accordingly they have a covering, which is, at the same time, light and It is as you well know formed of feathers, those next the body being shorter and finer, those outside larger, stronger, and tinted with a splendid variety of colors.

warm.

R. PATTERSON,

70.- COLORS OF BIRDS.

am'e-thyst, a precious stone. chæ'to-don, a genus of fishes. cor'y-phene, the dolphin (fish).

har-mo'ni-ous, symmetrical.
lev'y, to draw on.

par-a-di-si'a-cal, like paradise.

1. IN color, birds take precedence of all other living creatures. Our four-footed friends are clothed in neutral tints, whose effect in harmonious blending is indeed beautiful; but this is repose of color. Bound to the soil, the quadrupeds and the creeping things partake of the nature of the soil, earthy and dull. - earthy and dull. But the birds, those beings of the air, borrow the sunlight, levy upon the rainbow, and appropriate the flames of sunset clouds.

2. Even the minerals cannot surpass the birds in purity of color. Opal and diamond, amethyst and ruby, jasper and emerald, and the glory of every gem, are seen on the feathers of the birds, not dead, resting in mineral slumber, but radiant and sparkling with living fire.

Some reptiles have pure and bright colors, but taken altogether they are rather of the somber and neutral hues. Serpents there are with bright colors laid on gaudily; but even these very colors, bright though they be, remind one only the more glaringly of detested venom.

3. Immensely varied and brilliant are the hues to be found on fishes. Perhaps the chaetodons surpass all others. Their home is in the tropical seas. Gorgeous, indeed, are their garments, striking and wonderful; and yet birds without number can be found whose attire is far richer, not only in single colors, but in union of harmonious tints. In the West Indies is a fish called the angel-fish. It has

blue and golden stripes and bands of such purity and beauty as to make one think it the most wonderful and beautiful thing in all the world.

4. We have heard much of the beautiful colors of the dolphin, or, more correctly speaking, of the coryphene, and especially of its changing hues while in the act of dying. Coming from the West Indies in a sailing vessel, I had opportunity of seeing two of these fishes, which were hooked and hauled aboard one day. Active swimmers they were indeed; but with their beauty of color I was not so much impressed. Their hues seemed metallic; and the whole fish had a brassy look not altogether pleasing. Far more beautifully colored creatures than the dolphin swim the sea.

5. In color, nothing approaches the birds so nearly as insects; and they, too, are winged. Approaching the birds in color, they also approach them in power of flight; and thus in display of color the navigators of the air stand foremost of all creatures of the earth. And yet even insects do not really approach the birds in point of beauty. Far behind them in elegance of form, their colors, even if as fine, do not find such happy expression. The lustrous beetle, however beautiful may be his wing-covers inside or outside of the microscope, cannot vie in display of color with a bird of handsome plumage. The gayest butterfly that ever sipped nectar from a flower pales in comparison with one of our little humming-birds, decked in colors so bright and pure that they seem snatched from the rainbow itself.

6. The trogons are all beautiful birds; and pre-eminently so is the resplendent trogon that lives in the shady forests of Mexico. No mineral, no insect, no fish, no reptile, nay,

scarcely the rainbow itself, can show such green as glows in the long bending feathers of his tail. For gracefulness of form, exquisite blending of the purest hues, transcendently lovely, we should look upon this paradisiacal bird.

7. But can we venture to say that any bird rivals the peacock in splendor of plumage? The trogon's beauty and the peacock's do not clash: each is perfection, each is glorious. Search the animal kingdom; bring together all the mammals - lions, tigers, leopards, monkeys; put together all their stripes and spots and streaks, and you cannot bring out a color that shall equal a single feather of a peacock's tail. Then assemble all the fishes-red, yellow, blue; and all the butterflies, beetles, and every shining bug; and leave not out the frogs, snakes, or lizards, nor any of the speckled spiders, nor the sea-fans, nor the corals, nor the sea-weeds, nor any other kind of weed, plant, or tree; and bring all the flowers of the world together,

and you can find nothing of such splendor as a peacock's tail.

8. Birds of flight! birds of plumage! birds of song! who but you can hold the circled rainbow in his crest? On the humming-bird flames the sunlight; on his breast the rainbow dwells.

GUSTAVUS FRANKENSTEIN.

1. TEN years before the Declaration of Independence, there was born to a poor weaver in the little town of Pais