our admiration will be increased by further examination. Every feather is a mechanical wonder. If we look at a quill, we find two properties not easily brought together, strength and lightness. There are few things more remarkable than the strength and lightness of the pens with which we write. If we look at the upper part of the stem, we see a material made for the purpose, used in no other class of animals, and in no other part of birds, tough, light, pliant, and elastic. The pith, also, which feeds the feathers, is unlike any other animal substance; it is neither bone, flesh, membrane, nor tendon. But the artificial part of a feather is the beard, or, as it is sometimes called, the vane. The beards are fastened on each side of the stem, and constitute the breadth of the feather, and we usually strip them off, from one side or both, when we make a pen. The separate pieces, or laminæ, of which the beard is composed, are called threads, sometimes filaments, or rays. The first thing to be observed is, how much stronger the beard of the feather shows itself to be, when pressed in a direction perpendicular to its plane, that when rubbed either up or down in the line of the stem; and the structure which occasions this difference is, that the lamina, of which these beards are composed, are flat, and placed with their flat sides towards each other, by which means, while they easily bend for the approaching of each other, as you may perceive by drawing your finger ever so lightly upwards, they are much harder to bend out of their plane, as that is the direction in which they have to encounter the impulse and pressure of the air, and in which their strength is wanted, and put to the trial. This is one peculiarity in the structure of a feather, and a second is still more remarkable. If you examine a feather, you cannot help taking notice, that the threads, or lamina, of which we have been speaking, in their natural state unite; that their union is something more than the mere opposi tion of loose surfaces; that they are not parted asunder without some degree of force; that nevertheless, there is no glutinous cohesion between them; that therefore, by some mechanical means or other, they catch, or clasp among themselves, thereby giving to the beard, or vane, its closeness and compactness of texture. Nor is this all: when two laminæ, which have been separated by accident or force, are brought together again, they immediately reclasp; the connection, whatever it was, is perfectly recovered, and the beard of the feather becomes as smooth and firm as if nothing had happened to it. Draw your finger down the feather which is against the grain, and you break, probably, the junction of some of the contiguous threads; draw your finger up the feather, and you restore all things to their former state. This is no common contrivance ; and now I will describe to you the mechanism by which it is effected. The threads, or lamina, before mentioned, are interlaced with one another, and the interlacing is performed by means of a vast number of fibres or teeth, which the lamina shoot forth on each side, and which hook and grapple together. A person counted fifty of these fibres, in one-twentieth of an inch. These fibres are crooked but curved, after a different manner; for those which proceed from the thread on the side towards the extremity of the feather, are longer and more flexible, and bent downward there, as those which proceed from the side towards the beginning, or quill-end of the feather, are shorter, firmer, and turn upwards. When two la- | minæ are pressed together, so that these long fibres are forced far enough over the short ones, their crooked parts fall into the cavity made by the crooked parts of the others; just as the latch that is fastened to a door, enters into the cavity of the catch fixed to the doorpost, and there hooking itself, fastens the door; for it is in this manner that one thread of a feather is fastened to the other. This admirable structure of the feather, which it is easy to see with the microscope, succeeds perfectly for the use to which Nature has designed it; which use was, not only that the lamina might be united, but that when one thread or lamina has been separated from another by some external violence, it might be reclasped with sufficient facility and expedition. In the ostrich, this apparatus of crotchets and fibres, of hooks and teeth, is wanting: and the consequence is, that the filaments hang loose and separate from one another, forming only a kind of down. This constitution of the feathers, however it may fit them to adorn a lady's head dress, may be considered an imperfection in the bird; as wings composed of these feathers, although they may greatly assist it in running, do not serve for flight. -Cressingham Rectory. USE OF SMALL BIRDS IN DE STROYING INSECTS. WE would say a word or two respecting the benefits and injuries imputed to Sparrows, Linnets, and other small birds. That they are occasionally mischievous cannot be denied, though it is but fair to add, that they also, like the Rooks before mentioned, repay us by a considerable balance of good. That the Bullfinch feeds on the buds and seeds of trees, there can be no doubt, and that the Chaffinch, though by many considered as a pure feeder on insects, does the same, particularly in early Spring, when he inflicts ruinous injury on the sprouting crops of several plants, is equally true. Sparrows, too, burrow in our stacks, and consume a certain quantity of corn; not, indeed, in the same serious quantities that another bird does, called the Snow-Bunting: these birds, in hard Winters, come from the north in prodigious flocks, and, where they take up their quarters, become quite a nuisance; not so much by what they consume, as by what they destroy; which they do thus. In search of grain they frequent the stack, and then seizing the end of a straw, deliberately draw it out. To such a degree has this been done by them, that the base of a rick has been found entirely surrounded by the straw, one end resting on the ground, the other against the stack, as it slid down from the top, and as regularly placed as if by hand, and so completely was the thatching pulled off, that it was found necessary to remove the corn. That some guess may be formed of the possible extent of good or evil occasioned by small birds, we annex the result of our own observations, on the precise quantity of food consumed by certain birds, either for their own support or that of their young, remarking at the same time, that the difference observed in the instances, may be partly accounted for by the different quantity of food required by young birds, at different periods of their growth. Sparrows feed their young 36 times in an hour, which, calculating at the rate of 14 hours a day, in the long days of Spring and Summer, gives 3500 times per week; a number corroborated on the authority of another writer, who calculated the number of Caterpillars destroyed in a week to be about 3400.Redstarts were observed to feed their young with little green grubs from gooseberry-trees, 23 times in an hour, which, at the same calculation, amounts to 2254 times in a week; but more grubs than one were usually imported each time.-Chaffinches at the rate of about 35 times an hour, for five or six times together, when they would pause, and not return for intervals of eight or ten minutes: the food was green Caterpillars.The Titmouse 16 times in an hour. The comparative weight consumed was as follows: a Greenfinch provided with 80 grains, by weight, of wheat, in 24 hours consumed 70, but of a thick paste made of flour, egg, &c., it consumed upwards of 100 grains.-A Goldfinch consumed about 90 grains of Canary-seed in 24 hours.-Sixteen Canaries consumed at the average rate of 100 grains each in 24 hours. The consumption of food by these birds compared with the weights of their bodies, was about one-sixth, which, supposing a man to consume food in the same proportion to his weight, would amount to about 25 pounds for every 24 hours! -BISHOP STANLEY's Familiar History of Birds. and the vegetables; and accordingly a reward of so much per dozen, for their heads, is offered and paid by the churchwardens in many parishes. The accusation is perfectly just; the sparrows do eat the corn, and commit depredations in the garden and orchard. I do not mean to deny that. All that I contend for, is, that they also do some good, and make ample compensation for the injury they commit, by the beneficial services they perform for us. They are the destroyers of immense numbers of insects, which would multiply to a prodigious and alarming extent, if their increase were not checked by these and other birds which prey upon them. It has been calculated, from actual observation by an intelligent naturalist (see Introduction to Bewick's History of Birds), that "a single pair of sparrows, during the time they are feeding their young, will destroy about four thousand caterpillars weekly, they likewise feed their young with butterflies and other winged insects, each of which, if not destroyed in this manner, would be productive of several hundreds of caterpillars." There are people to be found, who will not scruple sometimes to murmur against Providence, and to fancy, that it would have been much better for the world, if this or that animal, which they in their ignorance are pleased to consider altogether useless, or even noxious, had never been created. So, probably, thought our friend the farmer, when he saw the sparrows feeding on his wheat. Now, this is, in effect," charging God foolishly," and presuming, that we ourselves know better, and could have better ordered the world, than the all-wise Creator himself, who has pronounced of all his works, that they "were good." It seems to have been an object in the Divine G 2 mind, to create a vast multiplicity of different living beings. Hence the earth, the water, and the air, are all furnished with a countless variety of animals. "All nature teems with life." And much good, no doubt, upon the whole, results to man, and in many ways, from such a scheme of things as this, which we find around us. But then, to go on as it ought to do, without disturbing the economy of nature, every thing must be kept within its proper limits-nothing must be either diminished or increased out of due proportion. the hand of God, that it was created for no good end, or serves no good purpose in the general plan of Providence. When we come to search, and to inquire, and take time to examine things a little below the surface, we find that we are able to see the use of some animals, which are almost universally accounted useless or pernicious. Judging, therefore, of like things by like, we may well believe as much in the case of others, whose natural history is nearly, or altogether, unknown to us, remembering always, that "manifold" as are "the works of God," in wisdom has He made them all. "We have no bird, I believe, more generally known, thought of, or mentioned with greater indiffer ence, perhaps contempt, than the common sparrow (fringilla domes If, for example, the sparrows, which are a prolific race, had no The following remarks relating enemies to keep down their num- to the sparrow, extracted from the bers, but were to multiply a thou- | Journal of a Naturalist, are so just sand fold, they would, indeed, be- and beautiful, that they cannot but come a pest and a scourge, by de- be read with pleasure and advan stroying a greater part of our corn tage.-B-r. and fruits. If, on the other hand, the race were to be utterly destroyed, and there were no sparrows or other like birds left, then the caterpillars and insects would increase upon us, and would injure us to antica), that sitteth alone on the equal extent, in another way. But as things now are, the proper balance is preserved, one animal is a check against the over-increase of another; the sparrows prey upon the caterpillars, and other animals prey upon the sparrows. Thus the machine of nature is kept in proper order-works well, and as it was meant to do. Here then is a palpable case; at least, we can understand the good effected by the sparrows clearly enough, when it is once pointed out to us. No doubt, if we were thoroughly acquainted with the habits and manners of other animals, we should be able to discover some corresponding benefits resulting from them also. The lesson to be learned, then, is no less than this; not rashly to infer, even of the meanest creature which comes from house-top;' yet it is an animal that nature seems to have endowed with peculiar characteristics, having ordained for it a very marked provision, manifested in its increase and maintenance, notwithstanding the hostile attacks to which it is exposed. A dispensation that exists throughout creation is brought more immediately to our notice by the domestic habits of this bird. The natural tendency that the sparrow has to increase will often enable one pair of birds to bring up fourteen or more young ones in the season. They build in places of perfect security from the plunder of larger birds and vermin. Their art and ingenuity in commonly attaching their nests beneath that of the rook, high in the elm, a bird, whose habits are perfectly dissimilar, and with which they have no association whatever, making use of their structure only for a defence to which no other bird resorts, manifest their anxiety and contrivance for the safety of their broods. With peculiar perseverance and boldness, they forage and provide for themselves and their offspring; will filch grain from the trough of the pig, or contend for its food with the gigantic turkey; and, if scared away, their fears are those of a moment, as they quickly return to their plunder; and they roost protected from all the injuries of weather. These circumstances tend greatly to increase the race, and in some seasons their numbers in our corn-fields, towards autumn, are prodigious; and did not events counteract the increase of this army of plunderers, the larger portion of our bread-corn would be consumed by them. But their reduction is as rapidly accomplished as their increase, their love of association bringing upon them a destruction, which a contrary habit would not tempt. They roost in troops in our ricks, in the ivy on the wall, &c., and are captured by the net: they cluster on the bush, or crowd on the chaff by the barndoor, and are shot by dozens at a time; or will rush in numbers, one following another, into the trap. These and various other engines of destruction so reduce them in the winter season, that the swarms of autmann gradually diminish, till fheir numbers, in spring, are in no way remarkable. I have called them plunderers, and they are so; they are benefactors, likewise, seeming to be appointed by nature as one of the agents for keeping from undue increase another race of creatures, and by their prolificacy they accomplish it. In spring and the early part of the summer, before the corn becomes ripe, they are insectivorous, and their constantlyincreasing families require an un ceasing supply of food. We see them every minute of the day in continual progress, flying from the nest for a supply, and returning, on rapid wing, with a grub, a caterpillar, or some reptile; and the numbers captured by them in the course of these travels are incredibly numerous, keeping under the increase of these races, and making ample restitution for their plunderings and thefts. When the insect race becomes scarce, the corn and seeds of various kinds are ready, their appetite changes, and they feed on these with undiminished enjoyment. 66 ་ ་་་་ We have scarcely another bird, the appetite of which is so accommodating in all respects as that of the house-sparrow. It is, I believe, the only bird that is a voluntary inhabitant with man, lives in his society and is his constant attendant, following him wherever he fixes his residence. It becomes immediately an inhabitant of the new farm-house, in a lonely place or recent enclosure, or even in an island; will accompany him into the crowded city, and build and feed there in content, unmindful of the noise, the smoke of the furnace, or the steam-engine, where even the swallow and the martin, that flock round him in the country, are scared by the tumult, and leave him: but the sparrow, though begrimed with soot, does not forsake him; feeds on his food-rice, potatoes, or almost any other extraneous substance he may find in the street, looks to him for his support, and is maintained almost entirely by the industry and providence of man. It is not known in a solitary and independent state.”. FISHING the other day in Hampton Court Park, I disturbed a moorhen who had just hatched, and watched her anxiety and manu |