Chapter IX: Part 9

But we must now end this long chapter, remembering that we have spoken of only a few of the living creatures which belong to the vast family of animals which have no body framework or skeleton; you can read in larger books the wonderful things which are told about jelly-fishes and sponges, bees and wasps, flies and gnats, and green tiger-beetles--for when we have made a beginning in these little talks of ours together about God's creatures, it will be pleasant to go on; so pleasant for some of us that, having once begun, the difficult thing will be to know where to leave off.

I wish I could show you some pictures which I have seen of fossil insects. I believe white ants and dragon-flies, and even a butterfly, have been found among the rocky strata, but those of which I speak were preserved in amber, which is a clear yellow substance, long thought to be a mineral, but now recognised as the hardened resin of ancient pine-trees. In this transparent sepulchre bees and wasps, gnats, spiders, and beetles have been buried, some uninjured, and others with broken legs or wings. They must have got into the sticky gum while it was moist, and been unable to escape--and so have lain for ages in their transparent tomb.

I wonder whether these verses, which came to my mind while we were speaking of the lessons we should learn from those creatures which faithfully use the wisdom given them, are new to you.

"_Never man spake like this man_."

"From everything our Saviour saw,
Lessons of wisdom He would draw;
The clouds, the colours in the sky;
The gently breeze that whispers by;
The fields, all white with waving corn;
The lilies that the vale adorn;
The reed that trembles in the wind;
The tree where none its fruit can find;
The sliding sand, the flinty rock,
That bears unmoved the tempest's shock;
The thorns that on the earth abound;
The tender grass that clothes the ground;
The little birds that fly in air;
The sheep that need the shepherd's care;
The pearls that deep in ocean lie;
The gold that charms the miser's eye:
All from His lips some truth proclaim,
Or learn to tell their Maker's name."

CAROLINE FRY.

THE FIFTH DAY.

"FOWL OF THE AIR, AND FISH OF THE SEA."

"_And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much.... He spake also of beasts, and of fowls, and of creeping things, and of fishes._"--I KINGS iv. 29-33.

"_The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas._"--PSALM viii. 8.

We have already seen that it was on the FIFTH DAY that the two great oceans--the world of air above, and the world of water below--were peopled with inhabitants; that "God saw that it was good," and that all these happy living things began their life blessed by Him who gave it.

I wonder whether it will surprise you to hear that in some respects the inhabitants of these two worlds are alike.

Perhaps if you think of a fish and a bird--say a herring and a sparrow--you will say two creatures could hardly be less like each other; the bird has soft warm feathers, and the fish has scales, overlapping each other as the slates on the roof of a house do, thus making a perfectly waterproof coat for its whole body; the bird has legs and wings, and the fish has neither; the bird can chirp and sing, while fishes generally make no noise.

But if you could look inside the feathers and the scales, you would see that there is a likeness in the bony structure of these creatures, otherwise so unlike. Both are vertebrate animals, though the backbone of a fish is in some respects unlike that of a bird, still the _plan_ is the same, and it has been truly said that "among the many wonders of nature there is nothing more wonderful than this--the adaptability of the one Vertebrate type to the infinite variety of life to which it serves an as organ and a home." But when you said that the herring had neither legs nor wings, you forgot to notice the fins, by means of which it moves from place to place in its watery home; as the bird, on its strong wings, makes its way through the fields of air. Birds too, lay eggs, and so do most fishes, some of them even making nests; so there are points in which they resemble each other, are there not?

But while we know a good deal about the ways and habits of birds, very little is known of the life of a fish; for it is much more difficult to watch its way of living, and what is known about animals has been learned by watching them patiently.

Sometimes when you are in a boat sailing over very calm, clear water, you may look down and see the fishes darting here and there, and you may even think that if the boat would but stop you could catch one in your hand; but the only way in which you can really watch fishes sufficiently to see their mode of life, is by studying the habits of those which have been caught and put into glass tanks in an aquarium, where they live and move about just as birds do in their cages; only the fishes' tank must contain water as well as air.

Some time ago I went to an aquarium; it was close to the sea, so that there was no want of water to fill the tanks. At the bottom there was sand, and there were bits of rock, among which brown and green seaweeds were growing, in order that the prisoners might forget that they were shut up in a glass prison-house, and feel as much at home as possible in their captivity.

There they were, big fish and little fish, flat plaice and long serpent-like eels--fish of all sorts, of all shapes and sizes. There were other creatures as well as fish; lobsters and crabs and star-fishes; and the anemones, which "blow flower-like," and have such lovely colours that they are sometimes called "sea-roses," were waving their bright fringes to and fro, and catching the shrimps for their dinner with those same soft fingers of theirs. I should like you to see an aquarium such as this was; but if you cannot just now, I daresay you may have the chance of watching a gold-fish in a globe of water, and noticing how it uses its fins to balance itself and steer its way through the water, and its tail to move itself along so gracefully and swiftly; how it has two pairs of fins, which serve for legs and arms, besides three others, the use of which you cannot so well make out; and how the boat-like shape of the fish helps it to cut its way so rapidly through the water. If you keep drilled those two bright eyes over which God has made you officer, you will notice something near the fish's eye which keeps opening and shutting like a little door. That little door covers the gills, and it opens and shuts every time the fish breathes. But now comes a question which used to puzzle me--that is, What does a fish breathe?

When I heard, long ago, that fishes cannot breathe if they are taken out of the water, I used to think that they breathed the water; for then I knew no better than the boy who, when he had at last caught a minnow, put it into a bottle with plenty of water, and corked it up tight, in order to keep his prize safely.

Of course the poor little fish was dead before he got home. It died, not from want of water, but from want of air; for fishes draw in and send out the air through their gills, which are to them what your lungs are to you.

Those fringes which you see when the little doors open, are the gills. They are so red because they are filled with blood; indeed, they are made of a great number of little blood-vessels. As the fish swims along with its round mouth open, it does not swallow the water, but lets it run over its gills, and then out it comes at the little doors; the red fringes take the oxygen out of the water, and it goes into the fish's blood. The water is the fishes' atmosphere, and it is only from it that they can get air to breathe; so that if the glass globe were broken, and the pretty goldfish were let fall upon the carpet, unless they were quickly put back into water they would gasp and die from want of air; just as you would, if someone held your head long under water.

So you see that the home of the fish is perfectly suited to it. In the aquarium you would observe that while most of the fishes dart hither and thither, there are some which never rise to the surface of the water. These are the flat-fish; and they keep at the bottom, because for some wise purpose God has made them without the power of rising and sinking like others.

Inside most fishes there is a bag filled with air, as is the india-rubber ball which you delight to bounce so high. The fish can make this little balloon larger or smaller, just as it wishes to be itself lighter or heavier. As it swims along, it is usually about the same weight as the water; but when it wants to dive, the fish squeezes its air-bag tightly together, which causes its body to become heavier than the water--for air pressed closely together becomes heavy, and its own weight sinks it down. When it wants to rise again to the surface, it ceases to squeeze this bag, the air in the little balloon expands, and the diver rises again and floats or swims because its body is now lighter than the water.

Is not this a very perfect and beautiful plan? How true it is that God has provided for the wants of all His creatures, and fitted them for the life designed for them!

But besides rising or sinking when they please, fishes can turn themselves about very quickly. To understand how they do this, you must look at the long bone which runs right through the body, from head to tail. You will see that it is made, like your backbone, of a number of small bones which move upon each other so easily that they enable the fish to turn itself rapidly, as you see it does. The wonderful way in which these tiny bones are fitted together by what is called the "ball and socket arrangement" may best be seen in a large fish, such as the salmon; but a sardine's frame is made in the same beautiful way.

The scales, overlapping each other as they do, serve to protect the fish in its journey through watery ways, and their smooth, polished surface rendered slippery by a sort of natural oil, helps it to move quickly. We have imitated the scales of a fish in the way in which we arrange slates and tiles to keeps our houses dry. You know how the slates on the roof of your house overlap each other, so closely that no rain can get between them.

When I tell you that there are said to be nine thousand different kinds of fish in all parts of the world, you will understand that even in a large aquarium you can see but few varieties. In England alone hundreds of fresh-water fishes are known, while those whose home is in the sea are much more numerous still.

It has been found that if fresh-water fish is taken out of its natural element and put at once into the sea, it will die. But there are some fish, like the salmon, which live in the sea, but go up the rivers to lay their eggs, and then back again to their proper home; taking "change of air," as it were, but taking it gradually, and not plunging into a foreign country all at once.

Some fishes are great travellers. I have heard that what is called a "shoal" of herrings consists of millions of fish, and takes up a place in the sea larger than the area of London. This fish takes its name from an old word which means an army; and the herring-army has to come a long, long march--if we so speak of a journey through "the paths of the seas"--before it, as it were, encamps near our shores.

In winter the herrings are far away north, within the Arctic Circle, but in the spring they go south, travelling in shoals, six miles in length, and three or four in breadth.

When one of these great shoals comes near our northern shores it divides, one part travelling west, the other east. It is in September that the herring fishing begins, and a busy time it is for the fishermen.

The fish are always caught at night, and the darker the night the better chance there is of a good catch. When I was a child I used often to stand and watch the boats setting out about sunset, and many a time did I wish I might be of the party, for I thought no treat could be greater than to be allowed to stay out all night and see the nets full of shining fish drawn in over the sides of the boat. However, the fishermen are too wise to take children with them, for any noise frightens the herrings, so the fishing is done in silence, under the quiet stars. If you saw a herring-net taken in, you might forget yourself so far as to scream with delight at the sight of the fish flashing like silver, and bright with blue and purple hues which no painter could copy. But the rainbow colours, like those you see upon a soap bubble, are almost as soon gone; they will have lost their brilliancy before the boats come in, and the men begin to throw the fish on shore, and to count them.

One fish, "the Arrow of the Sea," is never so beautiful as when it is dying. I have read that the Romans--after they ceased to be a brave people, and became idle and pleasure-loving--used to have these fish brought in before dinner and shown to the guests. The gay, thoughtless ladies, as they clapped their hands with delight at the beauty of the quickly-changing colours--white turning to sky-blue, and then to deep red--cared no more for the suffering of the poor fish, gasping and dying before them, than for the fading petals of a rose; so hard-hearted can people become, who think only of their own pleasure. If poor Jack had been there, it would have made him grieved and angry indeed to have seen one of the "God-made" creatures treated so cruelly, would it not? You remember how he loved all living things, and could not bear that they should be hurt.

From the Gold-fish, with their brilliant, flashing scales, you can form some idea of how brightly coloured the fish in tropical seas are; but the most brilliant fishes have not always the most graceful forms, nor are they so good for food as those better known to us.

It is very interesting to observe that the sea-creatures which live upon the surface of the ocean are bluish or quite colourless and transparent, as some jelly fish, which look as if they were made of glass, and one kind of fish of which I have heard that its body is so transparent that the words of a book can be read through it. Others, not very unlike, but whose home is at the bottom of the sea, have opaque and mud-coloured bodies. We find that many creatures are of the same colour as their dwelling-place; butterflies are bright, like flowers, insects living on leaves are green, desert creatures are yellow or sand-coloured, those which live among the snow are white or grey, while the winter lasts, though some of them change their coats during their short summer. In this way the hunters and the hunted alike escape observation.

Fish have been divided into different classes: there are those which have bony plates instead of scales, as the Sharks and Rays, and many fishes which exist only as fossils; and those called the "splendid" fish, from the brilliancy of their coats of mail, which lock together like ancient armour. Most of them are extinct species, but the Sturgeon is one of these armoured fishes. Then the Mud-fishes form another class. But by far the most numerous is that to which the Bony-skeletoned fishes, with scales like those of the Salmon, belong. A few species are destitute of any bony or scaly covering; and one of them--the Electric Eel of South American rivers--protects itself by giving a sharp electric shock to any creature that comes in its way!

The eyes of fish are sometimes large, and they can see a long way, and also hear very quickly. Turbot, plaice, and other flat-fish, which have no swim-bladder, lie with one side in the mud at the bottom of the sea or rivers--Can you guess in which side of the head their eyes are placed?

"In the uppermost, and sometimes _both_ eyes are there."

You are right, for there would be no use for an eye in the side turned to the mud.

As far as we know, fish are not clever creatures, but I have heard that some kinds, kept as pets, have learnt to know the sound of the dinner bell just as well as the lions and tigers at the Zoo know their bell; and you have seen how _they_ rush about their cages, and roar with hungry impatience when it rings. I have read that some fishes of various kinds, such as Cod and Ling, kept for the use of the owners in a pond to which the tide came, near a house in Scotland, and regularly fed with limpets by an old woman who had charge of them, knew her voice, and would put out their heads and crowd to the side of the pond when she came near, and even let her take them up and stroke their cold backs; but I doubt that you will find your gold-fish so intelligent and affectionate.

I must not forget to speak of the fishes which make nests, for very few such have been discovered, and they are considered curiosities of fish-life. Perhaps when we know more of the habits of the finny-tribe, we shall find that some others provide for the safety of their young in a similar way, but at present I believe the Stickleback, which not only makes a nest but takes care of his young brood until they are six days old and can "find for themselves," is the only one known in Europe. In Demerara, a fish called the Hassar makes a floating cradle of grass or leaves for its eggs, over which it watches carefully, being ready to defend it bravely when attacked; thus in Australia, an eel called the Jew-fish was one day noticed swimming round and round a clear place among the reeds, and it turned out that it was guarding a nest of stones which it had placed in the river bed.

There are one or two strange fishes which you will not see in any shop; though if you have friends who "follow the sea," they may have told you of the Sun-fish, sometimes caught in the west of Ireland; very large and round it is, of a silvery-white colour, so that on dark nights, when the fishermen have seen it shining as it swam, just under the water, it has seemed to them like the sun shining behind the clouds on a showery day; and they have given it this name.

You may too, have heard strange tales of another round fish, called from its shape the Globe-fish, and from its skin the "Sea-hedgehog"; it is covered with sharp thorns, and has the power, by swallowing air, of so greatly increasing its size (without sharing the fate of the poor toad in Æsop's Fable) that it not only can rise to the surface of the water, but float as long as it pleases. Then there are the blue Flying-herrings, with long fins, which you would see if you took a voyage to Australia. These poor little creatures have enemies both in birds and fishes. When the sharks want to make a meal of them, they leap into the air, using their long fins almost as a bird uses its wings, and are able to keep up for some distance; some say they can fly five hundred feet; but alas! when they are on the fin, the sea-gulls are eager and ready to pounce upon them, and they have to take refuge in the sea again. With all their beauty, they have a hard life of it, constantly escaping away from the sea-gull, into the shark!

And now, when we have time, I think both you and I shall be pleased not only to observe carefully the fishes which we see every day, but to read about others; about the sword-fish, which has neither scales for its protection, nor teeth, but whose snout forms a bone, four or five feet long, set with sharp pointed teeth on each side--somewhat like a double-edged saw; this bone is a most formidable weapon when used against large fish, and is so strong that it has even pierced through the planks of a boat; about the tiny Sea-horse, with its head so curiously like that of a horse, and its wing-like fins; about the Whale, which is not really a fish at all (and why it is not will be something for you to find out), besides a great many monsters of the deep of which I have not time to tell you. We have already had a much longer talk about fish than my children had, although it was while we were speaking about fishing, and how the night is the usual time for it, that we read two accounts of great numbers of fish being caught in the sea of Galilee--not at night, but in broad daylight.

One account is given in the gospel of Luke. You know that--the disciples, Simon and Andrew his brother, and James and John his brother, were fishermen, and used to launch their boats upon the Sea of Galilee, and let down their nets into the deep blue water. It was when they had been fishing all night, and had caught nothing, that they left their boats beside the sea, and were busy washing their nets.

Fishermen feel very downhearted and disappointed when the morning comes, after they have been out all night, and finds them with only a few fish in their boats: but these fishermen had got one fish. Peter said, "We have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing."

The Lord Jesus knew all about that long night of toil, as He sat in Peter's boat, and taught the crowds of people who stood on the shore; and He knew how disappointed those tired fishermen must be. Presently He spoke to Peter, and said, "Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answering said unto Him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at Thy word I will let down the net."

Night is the best time for fishing, and all night they had toiled in vain. The empty nets were there; but in Simon's boat was the One who had made the fish, and He caused them to fill the nets in such numbers that the slender cords broke, and both the boats were overladen.

"When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord."

He felt what it was to be in the presence of the Lord; how unfit he was to be near Him; but yet he could not bear to let Him go; Jesus said to Peter, "Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men."

"What does it mean?" May asked, when she had read this verse, "How could Peter catch men?"

To find the answer to her question, we read in the second chapter of Acts about the first time Peter preached at Jerusalem, and how he told the very people who had taken Jesus of Nazareth, and "by wicked hands" had "crucified and slain" Him, that God had raised Him from the dead, and "made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." We read that while he spoke of Him three thousand people received his word gladly. Surely at that time there was a fulfilment of the Lord's promise to him. Peter had indeed become a fisher of men--rescued from the cold waters of death, caught away from the grasp of Satan, henceforth to belong to Christ for ever.

But before this time there had been that other scene beside the Galilean lake, of which we read at the end of the gospel of John.

Again after a weary night's fishing, the disciples had taken nothing; again, at the word of the Lord, the net was cast over the side of the boat, and drawn in "full of great fishes."

The Lord Jesus, after he rose from the dead, was still the same, always thinking of His dear disciples, and caring for them. You remember that He would not allow the crowds of people, who had come from far to hear them, to go back to their homes hungry and tired, but that He made them rest on the green grass while He fed them with the loaves and the little fishes. Now He knew all about Peter and James, and John and Thomas, and those two others who had gone fishing with them. They had been out all night, and were very hungry, and directly they came to land they could see that their Lord had been thinking of how they would feel; for all that they wanted was ready--a fire of coals on the shore, and fish laid upon it, and bread--and they heard the voice which was so dear to them, that well-known voice which had once come to them across the stormy waves saying, "It is I; be not afraid," now bidding them, "Come and dine." And it was from those kind hands, which had been pierced when He suffered the cruel death of the cross, that they received the bread and the fish which was prepared for them.

What a wonderful time to remember! I think Peter must have been thinking of it when he said to Cornelius, We "did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead." Perhaps he also thought of another time when the Lord asked for some food, "and they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And He took it, and did eat before them"--to show them, while they yet believed not for joy and wondered, that it was indeed Himself who was standing among them, risen from the dead.

You will find that there are a good many places in the Bible where fish are spoken of. I hope you will have in your list one which was given me by Sharley only; although I had expected that everybody would have found it. It is mentioned in the gospel by Matthew, alone. We are not told what sort of fish it was in whose mouth Peter found the "stater," a piece of money worth about three shillings, which was exactly enough to give, as the Lord told him, to those who had come to ask for money to meet some expenses belonging to the temple. Every Jew paid a fixed sum, and this piece of money in the fish's mouth was just twice that sum. How beautiful that the One who was God, and had power over the fish of the sea, to send them into Peter's net, or to make even a fish bring to Him the coin which was wanted, should put Himself beside Peter, and say, "Lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for Me and thee"! Ah, but we know that the Lord Jesus Christ was "meek and lowly in heart" and He loved to put His disciples with Himself, as children of God His Father!

A writer who lived at the time when our "King James's" Bible was translated, speaking of the sea as "the great pond of the world," says, "We know not whether to wonder at the element itself, or the guests which it contains."

As we have been learning a little of the ways of the inhabitants of the ocean of air, as well as those that people the world of water, let me close this chapter by quoting an American poet's beautiful verses:--

"TO A WATER FOWL.

"Whither, midst falling dew
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

"Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

"Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

"There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast--
The desert and illimitable air--
Lone wandering, but not lost.

"All day thy wings have fanned
At that far height the cold, thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

"And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend
Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

"Thou'rt gone; the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

"He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright."

W. C. BRYANT.

THE FIFTH DAY.

FLYING FOWL.

"_Gavest Thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich?_"

"_Doth the hawk fly by Thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south?_"

"_Doth the eagle mount up at Thy command, and make her nest on high?_"--JOB xxxix. 13, 26, 27.

"_The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land._"--SONG OF SOLOMON ii. 12.

It was on the FIFTH DAY of Creation that the silence was broken by the voice of birds. We are so accustomed to the various cries of animals, the buzzing of insects, and above all to the chirping and twittering and singing of birds, that we can hardly imagine what a voiceless world would be like.

I have heard that far away in New Zealand, travellers who try to make their way through the great tangle of trees and creepers which is called the "Bush," speak of the silence and loneliness of the dense forests as dreadful, and they particularly mention that there is no voice of bird to be heard there. Very different is a place I know, where, although the trees in which they perch are by the roadside, and noisy carts and carriages are coming and going all day long, yet the sparrows overhead keep up such a constant chatter and flutter that once as I passed that way a countryman looked up at the trees and smiled, and said to me, "Plenty of company up there!"

When I told the children this they were much amused, and I am sure they thought it would be very dull never to hear the crowing of a cock or the "quack, quack" of a duck--to say nothing of the soft cooing of doves in the wood, and the sweet, rich notes of the thrushes and blackbirds.

A Frenchman, who has written a very large book all about birds, says that if we were not so accustomed to them we should think a bird flying through the air the most wonderful thing we had ever seen--and I think he is right; but before we speak of these wonderful and beautiful creatures, let us read once more the verses in Genesis which tell us of their birthday, beginning with, "And God said," and ending with, "And the evening and the morning were the fifth day."

We have been speaking of the living creatures which the waters brought forth, and now we must think a little of the "winged fowl," which were made to people the "expansion," and are sometimes called the "fish of the air," as the fishes are called the "birds of the ocean."

Of all the happy living things I think none _seem_ so full of joy as the birds. Their very flight has such buoyancy and gladness in it, and their songs seem always to be telling of happiness. Did you ever watch the sea-gulls flashing and darting about, and then floating quietly above your head, or the swallows in their rapid flight, wheeling round and round, and think how beautiful a thing it is just to see them on the wing, fluttering, soaring, floating in that ocean of air which is their home?

Birds are marked off from all other vertebrate animals by the possession of feathers. How wonderful is the wing of a bird; spread wide when it is flying, and folded up like a fan when it is resting, perched upon the branch of a tree, swaying to and fro in the sunshine. But how sad it is to see such a wild, free creature as a lark, or even a thrush or a linnet, pent up in a narrow cage, where there is no room to stretch those wings so strong and light, no swinging branch to rest upon; but all the little prisoner can do is to hop from one perch to another, and beat its wings against the "wiry grate" which shuts it in so hopelessly. I suppose we don't think so much of captive birds as of other captives, because a bird in a cage is such a common sight, and when we hear it sing so sweetly it seems as if it could not be _un_happy; but when we say "as happy as a bird," I doubt if it is of birds in cages we are thinking after all.

The cage may be of gilded wires, or of willow twigs; but both are alike prison bars which keep the birdie back from the liberty to which it was born. At least this was what an English sailor felt when he met a man carrying a cage full of birds. He had been a prisoner himself, away in France, and had many a time longed to be free; and now when he saw the birds in their gilded prison, he was not happy until he had made a bargain and got them, cage and all, to do what he liked with. What was the astonishment of the man from whom he had bought them, when he saw the sailor open the cage door and let them out, one by one, until all the little prisoners were free!

As you have watched the birds in their flight, I daresay you have wondered how they can keep themselves up in the air. Even the little wren has some weight; much more the crows which make their nests in the topmost branches of the trees. We say "as light as a feather"; yet the downiest feather has some weight, and will find its way to the ground if not kept up by wind or breath.

It is true that the "feathered fowl," as all kinds of birds are called in the Bible, are very much heavier than the air in which they float and swim, using their wings for oars, just as the fish use their fins. But do you remember that little balloon inside the fish, which enables it to rise through the water? A bird is almost a live balloon; as it flies, it breathes air into every part of its body; this air becomes heated, and is kept warm by the feathers; and as hot air becomes light, the bird is so much lighter than the air which surrounds it, that it can easily rise higher and higher, until, like the skylark, its little quivering body seems almost lost in the far blue sky, and its "waterfall of song" alone shows where it is.

The bones of a bird are very strong, but they are also very light; if you look at the bones of a chicken, you will see that some of them are hollow; when the bird was alive, those hollow places were all filled with air. Take a dead bird and look at the quills at the roots of the feathers; and now watch that swallow as it darts so rapidly hither and thither. The bird is able to fill each tiny quill with air, so that its body becomes like a balloon, and it rises high above the roofs of the houses; then, like the fish, when it wishes to sink, it can breathe out all the air again, and so constantly change its weight, and fly, now high, now low, faster than any train can rush or ship sail.

There is a wonderful bird which sailors have seen a thousand miles from land. It is called the Frigate-bird, and has never been known to rest on the sea; it lives upon sea-creatures, but makes its nest on shore. Each of its wings, if stretched out as when the bird is flying, measures more than the height of a man; yet even such an enormous bird as this does not sink down by its own weight, but flies mile after mile upon its strong wings, every feather of which unites strength and lightness, never resting till its airy voyage is over, and it finds its nest. It is said that when storms sweep over the sea, this "ocean eagle" mounts upward until it has reached the calm which lies above the storm, and so sails upon its untroubled way.

The feathers of birds are to them what its scales are to the fish, and hair and wool to other animals--a protection. They are not only light and strong, but warm, and by their means, as a bird soars into colder regions of air, it is protected from the cold: while for aquatic birds there is a special provision--by pressing with their beaks an oil-gland near the tail they can waterproof their feathers! Now look again at your dead bird; you will see that the wings and tail are formed of quills, while the surface of the body is covered with short feathers--even the ear being protected by a little tuft--and all the spaces between are filled with the softest, warmest down. Could any creature be more beautifully equipped for its journey through the fields of air?

Then this soft, warm, light dress is renewed once or twice a year, generally so gradually that the change is imperceptible--but you may have seen fowls and ducks straggling about the farmyard with half their feathers gone--on the principle of being off with the old coat before they are on with the new.

The eyes of both fishes and birds have an extra lid formed of very thin skin, which can be moved quickly over the surface of the eye, serving to cleanse it and protect it.

There are three thousand distinct kinds of birds, but it would be impossible to learn about so many, they have been divided into five groups--birds of Prey, Perching birds, Scratching birds, Wading birds, and Swimming birds.

I must tell you that Chrissie and Sharley and May had learnt something about these groups from a book of which they are very fond; it is called _The First Year of Scientific Knowledge_, and there are pictures in it of the different birds, beasts, and fishes which are mentioned.

Now, let us think of some of the birds in the first group. Birds of Prey are those which hunt for their food, and eat the flesh of other birds, or of small animals, such as rats, and mice, or of snakes. All these birds--vultures, hawks, owls--have sharp hooked beaks, and long claws, also very sharp; they fly quickly, and soon overtake their prey, whether they hunt by day or by night.

The two birds of prey most often mentioned in the Bible are the Raven and the Eagle. You remember how, when the terrible flood, which God sent upon the earth because of the violence and wickedness of men, was over, and the Ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat, Noah opened the window of the Ark, and sent forth a raven. This bird of prey could find food for itself, as it "went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth," and it never came back to Noah; unlike the gentle dove who found no rest for the sole of her foot, but twice returned to her refuge, the second time carrying in her bill the fresh green "olive-leaf plucked off," which showed Noah that the waters were indeed gone. How wonderfully God, who feeds the young ravens which cry to Him, used those birds of prey to bring to Elijah "bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening," all the time that they were commanded to feed the prophet in his lonely hiding-place by the brook Cherith. The Raven is the patriarch among birds; it lives to be a hundred years old--beyond the age of man!

The Eagle, the king of birds, is a large and beautiful creature with very strong wings, and has its home in rocky places, difficult to reach. Like all birds who live upon prey which they catch alive, it is bold and fierce. There is a verse which speaks of it as "hasting to the prey." Eagles seize rabbits, hares, lambs, and young deer, and have even been known to attack a pony. They often carry off ducks and wild birds to their rocky eyrie, as food for their young ones. The Sea-eagle lives upon fish which swim near the surface of the waves; it sees them afar off with its keen eyes, and darts down upon them.

Most likely you remember the story of the Highland mother, whose baby was carried away by a great eagle, and how she climbed the steep rocks until she reached its nest, and rescued her child. Her strong mother-love took away all fear of the dreadful height which even a young sailor feared to climb, and of the wild birds who flapped their great wings at her, and then fled screaming away; but I need not say more of this Scotch story, which you may have so often heard, so I will tell you of what happened once in Switzerland to a little girl about five years old.

She was playing near her mountain home, when a great eagle saw her, darted down, and was just catching her curly little head in its strong talons, when a man with a gun, not far off, fired. He had been watching the eagle, but did not see the child, or he would have been afraid to fire, lest he should kill her. When he came to pick up the dead bird he found the little girl beside it. She had been saved by the shot which killed the fierce eagle; but I have heard that when she had grown to be a woman the scars of deep wounds made by its talons upon her head could still be seen. No doubt she often heard the story of how God had saved her from a double danger, and by-and-by she felt that she must ask Him to make her His servant all her life long, God heard her prayer, and allowed her to go as a missionary to a far-off land.

There is a beautiful verse in the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy, in which God compares His care for His people to the way in which the eagle cares for its young ones, and teaches them to fly.

I do not know whether you know many of the second group, the Perching-birds; but I am sure you have seen parrots, and heard them too. These clever, gay birds must look beautiful indeed in their forest home in tropical countries, as they flash and gleam in the sunshine; but their screaming--you know what it is like if you have ever paid them a visit at the Zoo--takes something away from their charm. They have been called "feathered monkeys," because they are so well able to climb trees. Look at their dark grey toes, and you will see that two of them are turned forward and two backward, so as to enable them to take a firm hold upon branch or twig. They have such hard bills because they live upon nuts and seeds. You have seen how Polly holds a nut, and shells it with the sharp point of her beak, keeping her eye on you all the time.

Perhaps you would not think it, but parrots are affectionate birds. A story is told of one that was very fond of a servant girl in the house where he lived. When she had a bad finger he would not leave her, and groaned as he sat beside her bed, as if he were himself in pain; and when she recovered he became quite cheerful again. But I think the account which Dr. Franklin gives of the kindness of a parrot to its mate is more interesting still.

He says he knew two parrots who had lived together four years, when the female became so ill from gout that she could not get down from her perch to reach her food. For four months the male bird went on carrying the food to her in his beak; and when at last she fell from her perch through weakness, he kept constantly near her, trying to raise her, and showing the greatest care for her.

When she could no longer eat, he tried in vain to open her beak, so as to give her food, uttering sad cries; or stood with his eyes fixed on her, mournful and silent. From the time of her death he pined away, and died a few weeks afterwards.

Such stories are very beautiful, because they show, as a lover of animals once said, "what kindness God has put into the heart of His creatures."

Of the Scratching birds, there is none which you know so well as the hen; indeed this group is often called by a Latin name, which means that all belonging to it are of the hen tribe.

Our fowls come from India, but they have been at home in this country for a long time, and are very common in Palestine. If you have ever seen a mother-hen taking care of her chicks, calling them to her when she fears any danger for them, and hiding them beneath her soft warm wings, you will better understand the words which the Lord Jesus spoke when He beheld Jerusalem, the beloved city, and wept over it. Think of these words when you hear the hen call her chickens, and see them all come running to her, and hiding away under her wings, to be kept in safety from some foe which _you_ cannot see, but which _she_ knows to be lurking near, or perhaps hovering above, ready to pounce upon a stray chick and carry it off.

You may often see the Turkeys, Pheasants, Peacocks, and other birds of this Hen-family, scratching up the gravel; and you know, I daresay, that grain-eating birds have a little mill inside them called a gizzard, which grinds their food for them. Birds of prey have no gizzards, because their food does not need to be ground before they can digest it.

The Wading-birds have long bare legs because they live in marshy places, and long necks and beaks to catch the small animals upon which they feed. Snipe and Woodcock have long tapering bills which are alive to the very points with what are called nerves, so that they may be able to feel for worms as they dig for them in the soft sand and mud, where they cannot see them. Two birds of this family, the Stork and the Crane, are mentioned in the Bible in connection with a wonderful power which God has given to some birds, by means of which they know when the time is come for them to leave a country where their food is over and gone, and where the winter is too cold for them, for a warmer land, where they may find food convenient for them, and from which they will know right well how to come back again when spring returns, with its food and foliage. Such birds are called birds of passage; the Swallow is the one you know best, and it also is mentioned in the verse in which so many migratory birds are grouped together, "The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming." It is God who bids these birds "observe the time of their coming": no one knows why they go south for the winter, nor how they can tell their way over land and sea, and come back again to the very place from whence they took their flight.

The Stork must be to the People in Palestine just such a "guest of summer" as the swallow is with us, for it regularly arrives about the end of March, and flies away in the autumn.

Ships make their long voyages to the other end of the world and back with wonderful regularity, but though the helmsman has a compass to guide him, they do not arrive in port so exactly at their appointed time as the little swallow, who has only the sense which we call "instinct" to guide it; only its own light, strong wings to carry it on its swift way, flying a mile a minute--for even to its little bones and feathers, every part of its body is filled with air, rendering it the most buoyant of winged creatures.

I met with a beautiful passage about migratory birds in a book I was reading lately. The writer says, "Were they planets revolving round the sun, their arrival could hardly be more accurately calculated by the astronomer.... The little birds are guided in their flight through the waste, lone wilderness of the sky, and over wide seas, without a compass or a map or a path, by His counsel and will. And they obey that guidance without the slightest inclination to swerve from it or seek a way of their own....

"Migratory birds passing from Africa to Europe over the sea, often alight on ships bound in that direction. Not unfrequently ship-captains tell us that they have seen birds of prey, hawks, and owls, appearing on the masts on such occasions in the company of swallows, goldfinches, and chaffinches; and yet the cruel birds never touched the innocent ones. The migratory instinct seems to subdue for a season the predatory instinct."

I want to tell you more about swallows, and especially a true but sad story of a tame one; but first we will speak of one more group, the Swimming-birds. You may have often noticed a duck's foot, and seen how the "web," or skin between the toes, can be folded up like a fan; or spread out, when the bird is swimming; Geese, Swans, Sea-gulls, the beautiful great Albatross, all these and a great many more of this family; they have a kind of water-wing, which cleaves its way through the streams, and most of them can also fly, although they are heavy birds. I have seen a flock of grey geese sailing on the sea, and the same flock at sunset coming home by a quicker way, looking like dark specks against the evening sky; but it is only wild geese that will fly so far.

Now then, we have had five groups. Let us count them. Birds of Prey, Perching birds, Scratching birds, Wading birds, Swimming birds, and I think I must add one more; for the Passerine, or Sparrow group includes most of the small birds, such as blackbirds and thrushes, nightingales and swallows, larks and magpies, linnets and humming-birds, and I cannot tell how many more "feathered fowl."