Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/269

Rh a time trailed helplessly along. Thus, then, we see that in the mammalia, instead of man standing alone, sharply contrasted to the rest of the class, he merely occupies one extremity of a series toward the other end of which stand our much-talked-of friends the lamb and the foal, while the carnivorous animals and the apes occupy intermediate positions. Some very plain reasons why this should be the case will follow in due course.

But what are the facts concerning birds? Are they all able, as soon as hatched, to direct the beak with perfect accuracy, to select suitable nourishment, and to flutter about awaiting merely the growth of their wing-feathers before they can take flight? Davy's "Ornither" must have been either a willful sophist or a most egregious goose. Had he been an accurate and conscientious observer, he must have been aware that what he predicates of birds in general is true, in any sense, merely of the Gallinæ, Grallæ, Anseres, and Struthiones, and assuredly not of the Passeres, Picariæ, Columbæ, Psittaci, and Raptores. Did any of the authors to whom we have been referring, before indulging in platitudes on young ducks, ever take the trouble to "consider" young hawks, young thrushes, or young canaries? Had they done so they would have seen that such nestlings, instead of being able to "direct the beak with the greatest accuracy," can merely sit in the nest with open mouth waiting to be fed! A young canary, so far from being able to stand or walk, seldom fails to break its legs if startled and induced by fright to attempt leaving the nest. Such facts as these are known to every bird-fancier—nay, we might say to every rustic youth, who has ever robbed a nest and has attempted to bring up the callow young by hand. They are not known, it appears, to men of erudition. It was, we think, the Prime Minister of Gustavus Adolphus, of Sweden, who said to his son, "Thou knowest not with how little wisdom the world is governed." In like manner, and even more truth, it might be said that we know not with how little accurate thorough knowledge books are compiled, the world is misinstructed, and imposing reputations are built up.

We do not demand original observation from Professor Whewell. Every one knows that the possessors of inherited wealth are apt to despise the man who has acquired a fortune by his own exertions. But there is a class of men—more numerous, we fear, in England than in any other civilized country—who, with a still more unjustifiable prejudice, contemn all knowledge that has not been derived from books, and scorn original research and discovery. Still it is strange that none of these writers should have met with the following observation from Gilbert White: "On the 5th of July, 1775, I again untiled part of the roof over the nest of a swift. The squab young we brought down and placed upon the grass-plot, where they tumbled about and were as helpless as a new-born child. When we contemplated their