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The
WILLIAM L.
CLEMENTS
LIBRARY
The University of Michigan
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THE
B I R D S () F THE BIBLE,







THE
B I R D S () F THE BIBLE,
BY THE
REV. H. H. A. R. B.A. UG H,
AUTHoR of “The heavenly Recognitiox,” “THE HEAvexly home,” etc. Etc.
(Plºuhill illuſtruth.
PHIL AD E L T H I A :
L IN D S A. Y. & B L A K IS T O N.
Yºntered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by
LIN D SAY & B L A K IST ON,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania.
STEREOTYPED BY J. Fagan..............PRINTED BY C. Shermax.............. PLATES PRINTED BY T, SINCLAIR.



TO
Aſ Y " . , 8,
T0 WHOM
T H E H 0 U R S 0 F L E IS U R E
IN which
THIS W O L U M E W A S P R EP A R ED
PROPERLY BELONGED,
IT IS NOW
Air I fill ſittl Jr iſ ſtri.


#Attfurt.
“BEHOLD the fowls of the air!” In this volume, on the Birds
of the Bible, we have asked the reader to obey, in spirit, this
touching command of our adorable SAVIOUR. He directs our
attention, not only to the kingdom above us, but also to the
kingdoms beneath us, because these too, if rightly studied, allure
us to things above.
Piously cultivated, and truly refined minds, will never tire in
the study of this beautiful portion of creation—the Birds. Pe-
culiarly interesting are those Birds which Jesus mentioned,
whose images, natures, and habits, mingled with the visions of
holy men of old, and which became to them great words bear-
ing precious truth to ages since, and ages yet to come.
We have made much use of the poets, old and new, because
“an utterance is given to them which is denied to others.”
They are the true naturalists, if not of the letter, of the spirit.
We must not be too prosy when we go forth into the fresh, green,
blooming, musical, joyous world, where the Birds are. Not only
as they dwell and sing in the groves must the birds be viewed,
but also as they live in our minds, hearts, memories, feelings, and


vii
viii. PRE FA C E.
associations. This is especially the case with the Birds of the
Bible, which live in the deepest and holiest of our associations.
While, therefore, we have labored to make this work scien-
tifically correct, and as to its facts strictly reliable, we have en-
deavored, at the same time, not so much to give descriptions
of dead birds as to make pictures of living ones. We shall be
happy if our book is more like a grove than a cabinet.
As we have avoided being prosy, so we have sought not to
be gloomy, but cheerful. Few, we think, go forth into the
rural world, in those seasons when the birds are out and happy,
without feeling uppermost in their hearts a joyous spirit.
We hope—for at this we have aimed—that the book will
illustrate many interesting portions of sacred Scripture, suggest
useful thoughts and reflections, awaken some pure and pleasant
feelings, and inspire in the heart an increased interest in the
beautiful birds, and, through them, incite us to livelier gratitude
and love to that kind Father in heaven who has made and
blest both them and us.
Gratefully, and in hope, we lay this humble offering and ser-
vice at His feet who said, in regard even to sparrows—“ Not
one of them is forgotten before God!”
LANCAstER, MAY 27, 1854.


(ſulfºntſ.
BIRDS............................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 13
INTRODUCTION........................................ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 17
THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
THE DOWE............ . --------------------------- --------------------- 35
THE SWALLOW....................................... ---------------- 53
TIHE SPARROW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
THE SWAN ... ....................................................... 77
THE OSTRICH............................................. .......... - 95
THE PEACOCK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
THE PELICAN................................ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 119
THE CRANE... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . --------------------- 129
THE HAWK................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................ 139
- THE PARTRIDGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
THE RAVEN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
THE QUAIL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
THE EAGLE. . . . . . . . . . . ---------------- --------------------------------- 175


x C O N T E N T S .
THE OWL. . . . . . . . ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' PAGE 201
THE STORK..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 213
THE CORMORANT ................................................... 223
THE CUCROO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
THE HERON. . . . . . . . . . . --- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 241
TILE WULTURE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ---------------------------------------- 247
THE KITE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ------------------------------- 255
THE LAPWING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ---------------------------------------- 261
THE BITTERN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 265
THE IBIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
THE OSSIFRAGE AND OSPREY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
THE DOMESTIC FOWL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
THE BAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

3||uſtifiullſ.
THE DOWE......... ---------------- -------------------------- FRONTISPIECE.
THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE........ ........................... Title-page.
THE SWALLOW................................ ---------- To FACE PAGE 53
THE SPARROW................................................* * * * * * 67
THE SWAN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
THE OSTRICH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .................................. 95
THE PEACOCK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
THE PELICAN. . . . . . . . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --------------------------- 119
THE PARTRIDGE. . . . . ----------------------------------------------- 145
THE QUAIL................... --------------------------------------- 169
THE EAGLE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ------------------------------------- 175
THE STORK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ------------------ 213
xi


BIRI) S.
OH, the Birds!
Many Birds.
Droves high in the air are flying,
To the south in Autumn hieing,
Thousands in the groves are sitting,
Thousands o'er the fields are flitting.
On the bushes one commences,
Thousands answer from the fences.
Small ones on the tree-tops talking,
Large ones in the water walking,
Many sizes, many races,
Loving all their several places,
Oh, the Birds,
How many Birds!
B (13)
14
BIRDS.
Oh, the Birds,
Pretty Birds.
How their necks are curved so nicely,
How their bills are carved precisely,
How their little eyeballs glisten,
When they turn their heads to listen
And their many-colored feathers,
Each one on the other gathers,
with such slopings and such gradings,
Brighter lines and softer shadings;
Take it all, their forms and features,
Are they not most pretty creatures?
- Yes, the Birds,
What pretty Birds !
Oh, the Birds,
The friendly Birds,
They disdain the desert places,
Where they see no human faces:
But they love the homestead hedges,
And the woodland's outer edges, –
And the mullens, and the thistles,
Where the ploughman plods and whistles,
And the orchard, as his nearer
To the house, to them is dearer:
-




º
B I BDS. 15
For they dread all lonely places,
Where they see no friendly faces, –
Yes, the Birds,
The friendly Birds.
Oh, the Birds,
- Singing Birds.
Singing in the morning sunlight,
Singing in the evening twilight,
On tall weeds, in meadows, swinging
In the summer sun, and singing—
Singing sweetly, singing gladly,
Singing solemn, almost sadly:
Singing solo, singing chorus,
Singing softly, and sonorous.
Earth is vocal, heaven is ringing,
With the joyous, ceaseless singing
Of the Birds,
The singing Birds.
Oh, the Birds,
Sacred Birds.
On the Bible's holy pages,
How each bird our heart engages!
Every instinct has its teachings,
Every habit has its preachings;

16
BIRDS.
Every plume reflects some glory,
Every song-note tells some story.
Oft our heart, in praising, praying,
Goes, in faith and fancy straying,
Where the Jewish shepherds wandered,
Where the holy prophets pondered,
Listening to the soft cantation,
And the joyous jubilation
Of the Birds,
The sacred Birds.
INTRO DUCTION.
SACRED STUDIES AMID RURAL SCENES.
I love to breathe where GILEAD sheds her balm;
I love to walk on JoBDAN's banks of palm;
I love to wet my foot in HERMON's dews;
I love the promptings of Isaiah’s muse;
In CARMEL's holy grots I'll court repose,
And deck my mossy couch with SHARON's deathless rose.
WHAT a world of varied wisdom is contained in the Bible —
an inexhaustible mine of precious treasures. The wisest and
best of men have dug in it for ages, and yet its depth and width
are not fully explored. There are veins of sacred wealth lying
hidden in its divine pages which can still enrich the wisest of
us, and of those who shall come after us. Those who have
studied it longest, and know its contents best, still exclaim,
each time they hang over its blessed leaves,
Ever charming, ever new
We have fallen, as we think, upon an interesting vein in this
mine of sacred treasures, which we propose to work for the
pleasure and profit of our readers. We wish to show how, in
2 B 2 (17)

18 IN T R O DUCTION.
the Holy Scriptures, God reflects divine truth from the lower
orders of creation, and makes them the instructors of the higher
– how He inlays the natural world with supernatural truth.
All animals—fowls, and insects, and flowers, are made symbols
of divine truth; and we are called upon to read in them the
lessons of wisdom which they are adapted to impart.
It is truly wonderful! Man, occupying so high a position in
the scale of being – man, made but a little lower than the
angels, is sent to school to the ravens, which cry unto God and
are fed—to the ants which, by their industry, shame the slug-
gard—to the sparrow, which takes no thought for to-morrow—
to the ox, which knoweth his owner — to the stork, which
knoweth her time—and to the lilies of the field, which exhibit
God's special care for all that He has made. The habits and
instincts of fowls and other animals, the fruitfulness of plants,
and the beauty of flowers, are all made preachers of divine
wisdom to man
It may seem strange that God should thus make the lower
orders teachers of man. Yet there is much reason and wisdom
in this. The lower orders of creation are ever to serve the
higher. The natural world is not only the platform upon which
man is to live and act; it is also to minister to his wants, and
to contribute, in various ways, toward the perfection of his
nature and character. Not only are the fruits of the earth to
feed him, but the flowers are to speak to him, the birds are to
sing to him, and all the things that he sees are to be to him
symbols of divine truth. God shows him all the realms that
lie around him, and says to him: “All are yours!" For man,
aS the lord of this lower world,
The whole realm of nature stands,
And stars their courses move .


IN T R O DUCTION. 10
No wonder, then, that God writes divine teachings upon every
object in nature, for the instruction of man. The falling leaf,
the fading flower, trees, streams, clouds, and stars, are all voices
and words of God, earnestly addressing him on the great subject
of his duties and his destiny. -
Another reason why God instructs the higher orders through
the lower is, because the lower orders fulfil the design He had in
their creation better than the higher. The higher order is a fallen
creation; and it has thus become perverse and perverted. No
doubt the lower orders, too, have suffered, in a measure, by the
fall; so that, perhaps, birds, insects, plants, and flowers, are not
so beautiful as they would have been had the fall never taken
place. No doubt the curse, which fell upon the earth for man's
sake, affected all that was in it; and sin, like a blight, has dis-
robed it of its primeval loveliness. No doubt there is truth in
the sentiment of the great poet, that when man sinned,
Earth felt the wound; and Nature, from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost.
Yet it would seem that the disorder is not so great and so
manifest in the lower, as in the higher orders. It seems that
the whirlwind of vengeance raised by sin, like a hurricane in
nature, bore fiercest against the eminences, while the lower
regions of nature lay comparatively unharmed beneath.
Observation also teaches us, that in many instances, instinct
in insects, birds, and all animals, guides them better than
reason does man. Instinct, that mysterious feeling implanted in
animals and insects by a kind Providence, impels them to self-
preservation, and guides them for the best. They follow im-
plicitly the leadings of this instinctive feeling, and it, in


20 IN T R O DUCTION.
most cases, leads them right. Man, however, often goes flatly
against his reason, and pursues a course which he knows and
acknowledges to be wrong and ruinous.
Reasoning at every step he treads,
Man yet mistakes his way,
While meaner things, whom instinct leads,
Are rarely known to stray.
Frequent allusions are made in Scripture to this wisdom of
animals and fowls; and frequently is their example held up to
perverse man, to his shame and condemnation.
“The ox knoweth his owner,
And the ass his master's crib:
But Israel doth not know,
My people doth not consider.”
“The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times;
And the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow,
Observe the time of their coming, -
But my people know not the judgments of the Lord.”
These passages teach plainly, that these animals and fowls do
better follow the monitor and guide with which their Creator
has endowed them, than rational man. No wonder, then, that
God sends man to them for lessons of wisdom. For this reason,
throughout the Scriptures, the various departments of the
kingdoms of Nature are constantly referred to as the teachers
of man; and animals, and birds, and insects, and flowers, have
power of silent utterance, foreshadowing wisdom to such as will
be wise.
It is a beautiful idea, that all objects in the natural world
are DIVINE THOUGHTS embodied. Whatever, therefore, God has
made, reveals Him. If the rose and the lily are divine

INTRODUCTION. 21
thoughts embodied, then, in looking into their nature, we look
into the divine mind; for there existed the image of these
flowers before they were created. Hence, when the Holy
Scriptures refer to the natural world, it is to interpret it—to
aid mute nature in making itself intelligible—to express for it
what it groans to utter!
When God began to give His revelation to the world, birds,
animals, insects, trees, and flowers, already existed, and had
already those characteristics which made it possible and proper
to make them representatives of divine wisdom to man. As
the God of Nature and of Revelation is the same, and as the
natural world was formed first, we conclude that God designedly .
caused a fitness to exist in the various objects of Nature, that
they might become worDS, by which he might illustrate and
communicate truth; and hence He has associated the truths to
be taught with those objects in nature as their appropriate
symbols. Thus, for instance, the loveliness of dove eyes
existed and was known to Solomon; hence he makes dove
eyes the Scriptural symbol by which to exhibit the mild and
tender love of the church towards her children. Nature fur-
mished the sacred writers with great words, in order that they
might be able fully to represent to us those thoughts which are
too vast for utterance by the use of mere literal terms.
Hence the book of Revelation often refers us to the book of
Nature.
When we would learn from the Bible the nature of the
kingdom of God, it refers us to nature, and says, It is like a
mustard-seed—it is as when a man puts a grain of wheat into
the earth. The pages of the Bible are small, but the world is
large; hence we are sent out to see its teachings expanded and
illustrated amid the analogies, symbols, and emblems of nature.

22 IN T R O DU CTION.
Truly the heavens declare the glory of God; and the whole
earth is full of Him — of His wisdom, power, and love.
The sacred writers have shown great wisdom in adopting
this mode of teaching. It has the effect of making their in-
structions more clear and more impressive; and great advan-
tages result to us from studying the Sacred Scriptures in con-
nection with the rural scenes of the Holy Land. It makes the
whole world of nature a commentary on divinely revealed
truth—a vast picture-gallery of divine events and transactions.
The Bible we cannot have always open before us; but, wherever
we are, the world around us speaks to us through all our senses.
Whatever we see or hear, may be to us a herald from God,
with messages of high importance. “This entire moral and
visible world, from first to last, with its kings and its subjects,
its parents and its children, its sun and its moon, its sowing and
its harvest, its light and its darkness, its sleeping and its waking,
its birth and its death, is from beginning to end a mighty para-
ble, a great teaching of supersensuous truth, a help at once to
our faith and to our understanding.”
As the sacred writers have thus inlaid nature with divine
truth, the various objects in nature are standing around us
always as silent but earnest monitors, reminding us of that
which revelation has associated with them. Thus God is in
nature in a sense more than poetic; for He comes down, and
dwells, and speaks around us. Thus, indeed, “He is not far
from every one of us!” A Pastor once preached a sermon on
the Messianic words in the Song of Solomon,
“I am the Rose of Sharon,
And the lily of the valleys'
in which he traced the analogies between these flowers and
the Saviour, of whom they are the sacred emblems. One of his


IN T R O DUCTION. 23
flock long afterwards told him, that sermon, with its interesting
truths, came up fresh before his mind whenever he saw roses
and lilies, and that these flowers seemed lovelier to him since
than they ever did before. This is a practical illustration of
the wisdom which God manifests in causing his revelations to
be embosomed in the beautiful and interesting objects in the
rural world. Thus he bids us, in our meditations,
Choose the rural shade,
And find a fame in every grove.
This kind of divine teaching has a still farther advantage,
because it exhibits to us truth and grace in its practical effects.
We hear from the Bible not merely what graces are, but we see
them embodied before us. We see, for instance, how beautiful
is mildness in the Dove; and we know that this grace will
endear us to others, because it endears the Dove to us. We
see the desirableness of meekness in the Lamb. In like
manner, the odiousness of enmity and deceit are embodied for
us in the Serpent and Adder; and we see in them how these
traits in us will cause us to be detested and shunned. Thus
nature is to us a mirror, in which we may see our own virtues
or follies; and, in our attempts to improve our character, we
have all the advantage of “practising before the glass.”
Thus have we indicated to our readers what we design, and
what they may expect from this excursion through oriental
groves, with a view of forming a more intimate acquaintance
with the sacred Birds of the Bible. -



T H E BIRI) S () F THE BIBLE.
He prayeth well, who loveth well,
Both man and bird and beast,
He prayeth best who loveth best,
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
BIRDs are living, winged flowers—shining gems in the sunlit
sea of air above us. One of the poets calls the stars, “the
poetry of heaven.” A like honor belongs to the birds. The
birds are not so great and grand as the stars, but they are
nearer to us; they are not so sublime, but they are as
beautiful.
Compare them with things on earth, and they have this
advantage, that they are of the earth or not, just as they
please. Gems may shine with colors as brilliant as they ; but
gems cannot fly, and thus exhibit, in graceful movements, all
the lights and shades of which the combination of colors is
capable. Flowers may be as beautiful in tint, and as graceful
in formation, but flowers cannot sing.
Who does not love birds; or rather, perhaps, who does not
C (25)
26 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
love something else in them? We all associate with some of
them sweet and cherished associations of early life. How they
used to sing, early in the morning, upon the trees near the
house ! How they hurried, with many a chirp and flutter,
from stake to stake before us, as we went forth to our labor
How they swung and sung, in mowing time, on tall weeds in
the meadow, and on taller tree-tops near by . How they floated
so gracefully, leisurely, serenely, and high in the warm blue
air How they passed in droves away over the sober land-
scape of autumn, going toward the sunny south; and how our
childish fancy conceived that they formed the letters of the
alphabet in flying, while we watched them until they were lost
in the dim distant azure of heaven—then we dropped our eyes
with a sigh, which meant, Alas! they are gone, the beautiful
birds !
Much of our childhood comes back with the birds that sang
around the homestead. They seem like old friends when they
come for a moment near us; and when they hurry again as
hastily away, it causes us deeply to remember that other friends
have flown before We find, too, that as there is in all the
world “no place like home,” so there are no birds which sing
so sweetly as those which carolled before our window “in life's
happy morning,” when our feelings were young.
May we not remark here, though we would do it as softly as
possible, that we never could see either the sense, the reason,
or the poetry, of caging foreign birds, and hanging them up at
the door, to serve and please by singing. What do they sing
that concerns us? The heart heareth not the voice of a
stranger. I would rather hear a blue-bird than a canary. I
would rather hear a crow !—spirits of fashion, how I shall be
anathematized' – than a parrot. Why this singular taste?



T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE. 27
Because my mother and I, my sister and I, and some one else
and I, heard these together, before I believed that birds are
truer than men. Because, too, like the harp of Ossian, they
bring back voices “pleasant and mournful. The voices of years
gone by. They roll before me with all their deeds!”
Thus incidentally do we arrive at the reason why the Birds
of the Bible are more interesting to us than all others. They
bring with them not only pleasant, but sacred associations.
They are the birds which sang in Paradise – which hovered
around the tents of the Patriarchs – which cheered the Pro-
phets in the desert—and which gave sweet response to the
shepherd's song amid the pastoral scenes of peace and pleasure
in the rural regions of the Holy Land.
Then, too, how many sweet and impressive teachings from
God do they drop from their wings upon the meditative spirit,
as they fly over us, or sit and sing around us! They are asso-
ciated with the deepest truths in divine revelation. If the
plague of the leprosy – the symbol of sin – is in any house;
then shall the priest take “two birds, one of which he shall
slay, and with a hyssop-branch he shall sprinkle the house
with its blood, and he shall cleanse the house with the blood
of the bird that is slain; but he shall let go the living bird out
of the city into the open fields, and make an atonement for the
house; and it shall be clean.” What meaneth this? We know
that
No bleeding bird, nor bleeding beast, *
- Nor hyssop-branch, nor sprinkling priest,
can take away the leprosy of sin; but we know that priest, and
bird, and hyssop-branch, do all point to ONE who can cleanse
from every stain. As one bird died that lepers might not die,
and the others lived that lepers might live; so Christ died and




















28 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
lived, that in death they might still live who receive the
Atonement. -
The bird, and the snare which the fowler lays for it, are
often alluded to in the sacred Scriptures, in the way of warning
and instruction. Saints, far on the heavenly journey, look
back upon their previous danger, and with hearts full of
gratitude to Him who delivered them, exclaim,
“Our soul is escaped,
As a bird out of the snare of the fowlers:
The snare is broken, and we are escaped.”
There is also valuable allusion made to the sagacity which birds
show in discovering the snare, and avoiding it. Some birds are
remarkably wary and awake. They think much less of their
food than they do of their safety, and hence they advance with
caution. If young persons do the same, then the designs of
their destroyers are frustrated.
“Surely in vain the net is spread
In the sight of any bird.”
The prophet Amos makes use of the same illustration to show
that the greatest danger of falling into evil results from the
dispositions of others to entrap us. There is in every man an
instinctive love of life and its supposed good, which urges him
to avoid danger; he is generally led into evil by the secret and
subtle allurements of such as wish to use him for their own
selfish purpose.
“Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth,
Where no gin is for him 7”
We need not, however, assume from this that those who seek
to ensnare us do it because they hate us. No; rather because



T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE. 29
they love themselves more than they do us. The fowler does
not hate the bird, but he loves the prey.
We are commanded to learn from the birds to be watchful
and cautious.
“Deliver thyself
As a bird from the hand of the fowler.”
He that is simple will suffer himself to be led blindly into
danger. He goes
“As a bird hasteth to the snare,
And knoweth not that it is for its life.”
Those sudden deaths which in so many awful cases overtake
the wicked, are most impressively set forth by the same allusion
to the smaring of birds:
* For man knoweth not his time.
As the fishes that are taken in an evil net,
And as the birds that are caught in the snare;
So are the sons of men snared in an evil time,
When it falleth suddenly upon them.”
What a delightful assurance do the Holy Scriptures give us
of God's care over us, by reference to the birds !
“I know all the fowls of the mountains.”
We are invited, by the Saviour, to regard God's care for the
birds as a strong assurance that He will not forget to provide
for his children, who are of far more value than ravens or
sparrows. Never was more conclusive argument, and more
beautiful poetry, brought together in so small a space. “Take
no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall
drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the
life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the
fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor



c 2
30 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.
Are ye not much better than they " If He care for the less,
He will also care for the greater. The birds that chirp and
sing so cheerfully around our dwellings are daily messengers to
us, telling and assuring us that the kind Father in Heaven
has “daily bread” for all His own children who turn affection-
ately towards Him. Yes, little bird, thou art a preacher, and
the Redeemer of men has given you a beautiful text. Preach
thou upon the bushes and upon the tree-tops every morning
to those who are “ of little faith.”
Birds are divided, in the sacred Scriptures, into clean and
unclean. As a general rule, it may be said, that those were
clean and allowed for food which live on grain and seeds; while
those which devour flesh and carrion were pronounced unclean,
and were to be regarded as unfit for food.
There is a catalogue of Binns forbidden, given in “English
metre,” in the Bibliotheca Biblica, published in 1725, and printed
in old black-letter. We find it quoted in Dr. Harris's Natural
History of the Bible. It contains, we think, too much genuine
poetry to be omitted; hence we give it in full.
Of feathered Foules, that fanne the bucksom aire,
Not all alike weare made for foode to Men,
For these thou shalt not eat doth God declare,
Twice tenne their nombre, and their flesh unclene:
Fyrst the great Eagle, byrde of feigned Jove,
Which Thebanes worshippe and diviners love.
Next Ossifrage and Ospray (both one kinde),
Of luxurie and rapine, emblems mete,
That haunte the shores, the choicest preye to finde,
And brast the bones, and scoope the marrowe swete:
The Vulture, void of delicace and feare,
Who spareth not the pale dede man to teare:


-
-
T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE. 31
The tall-built Swann, faire type of pride confest;
The Pelicane, whose sons are nurst with bloode,
Forbidd to man she stabbeth deep her breast,
Self-murtheresse through fondnesse to her broode;
They too that range the thirstie wilds emong,
The Ostryches, unthoughtful of their yonge.
The Raven ominous (as Gentiles holde),
What time she croaketh horsely a la morte;
The Hawke, aerial hunter, swifte and bolde,
In feates of mischief trayned for disporte;
The vocale Cuckowe, of the faulcon race,
Obscene intruder in her neighbor's place:
The Owle demure, who loveth not the lighte,
(Ill semblance she of wisdome to the Greeke),
The smallest fouls dradd foe, the coward Kite,
And the stille Herne, arresting fishes meeke;
The glutton Cormorante, of sullen moode,
Regardyng no distinction in his foode.
The Storke, which dwelleth on the fir-tree topp,
And trusteth that no power shall her dismaye,
As Kinges on their high stations place thir hope,
Nor wist that there be higher farr than theye;
The gay Gier-Eagle, beautiful to viewe,
Bearyng within a savage herte untrewe :
The Ibis, whome in Egypte Israel founde,
Fell byrd" that living serpents can digest;
The crested Lapuynge, wailing shrill arounde,
Solicitous, with no contentment blest;
Last the foul Batt, of byrd and beast first bredde,
Flitting with littel leatheren sailes dispredde.
32 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Many reasons, and very satisfactory ones, too, are assigned
by commentators for those divine prohibitions in the law of
Moses which relate to the use of some birds as food. The
Jewish rabbins themselves believed, that the quality of the food
itself exerted an influence on the moral temperament; “for,”
said they, “ though there may be some whose hurtfulness is
neither manifest to us nor to physicians, wonder not at it, for
the faithful Physician who forbids them is wiser than any
of us.”
Mr. Lowman has well observed, that “the food allowed to
the chosen nation was of the milder sort, of the most common
and domestic animals; creatures of the cleanest feeding, which
afforded the most palatable and nourishing meat, and which,
by a proper care, might be had in the greatest plenty and
perfection. Was not this far better than to license and encou-
rage the promiscuous hunting of wild beasts and birds of prey,
less fit for food, more difficult to be procured, and hardly
consistent with a domestic, agricultural, and pastoral life?”
We venture to say, that, considering the nature and habits
of many of those birds the flesh of which is forbidden, none
but gluttons would even now desire a repeal of the prohibition.
Why, moreover, at all, should any one desire to eat a pretty,
gay, innocent, charming, singing bird A rightly constituted
heart would certainly receive as much true pleasure from them
while they are alive in the air, and upon the branches, as when
they are dead in the pan – especially so long as there are so
many things good to eat which cannot sing.
The birds are beautiful to the eye, as well as sweet to the
taste. If they rendered us no other service than their company
and their songs, we could not well dispense with them. Did
you ever reflect, thoughtful reader, how empty would be the


T H E BIRDS OF T H E B I B L E. 33
air, how silent the grove, how lonely the fields and woods,
without birds 2
Naturalists have philosophically wondered, and scientifically
discussed the question, Why do the birds sing? We will show
our opinion. They sing for the very same reasons that human
beings sing, because God “ has made them so.” Hence they
have a particular nature or talent which adapts them to
singing. Some birds sing not at all, for the very same reason.
Those that have a talent for singing are moved thereto by the
same influences which move human beings to do the same –
gladness of heart, ambition to excel their rivals of the grove,
and the sweet deep movings of love. Take away these induce-
ments to sing from human beings and birds, and there will be
little music in the church, in the parlor, or in the grove.
Well do I love those varied harmonies
That ring so gaily in spring's budding woods,
And in the thickets, and the green, quiet haunts,
And lonely copses of the summer time,
And in red autumn's ancient solitudes.
If thou art pained with the world's noisy stir,
Or crazed with its mad tumults, and weighed down
With any of the ills of human life;
If thou art sick and weak, or mournest at the loss
Of brethren gone to that far distant land
To which we all do pass, gentle and poor,
The gayest and the gravest all alike; –
Then turn into the peaceful woods, and hear
The thrilling music of the forest birds.
How rich the varied choir .



( t ) mut.
Art thou the bird that saw the waters cease ?
Yes, and brought home the olive-leaf of Peace;
Thenceforth I haunt the woods of thickest green,
Pleased to be often heard, and seldom seen.
The wedded turtell, with his herte true.
WE begin our Birds of the Bible with the Dove. This we
do, because it is the sacred symbol of Peace, Purity, and Love;
and, as such, we wish it to preside over these pages. As the
emblem of peace, we desire that it shall extend over our readers
the olive-branch. As the emblem of the Holy Spirit, it shall
brood over every sentiment of this book. As the emblem of
love, it shall commend to us that grace of graces which never
faileth.
The first time this beautiful sacred bird is brought to our
view in the Bible, is under exceedingly interesting circum-
stances. It is at the time the flood begins to abate from the
face of the earth. It flies forth from Noah's hand over the wide
waste of waters, but finds not yet a place for the sole of its
foot; and at length, returning, it perches again upon the hand
that sent it, and is kindly taken into the ark. Again it goes
forth, and returns with an olive-branch in its mouth—the em-
blem of peace. It is the bird of peace. As such it was a fit


(35)
36 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIB L E.
messenger to bring to Noah the welcome testimony that God's
anger was subsiding with the floods, and that the green earth
was hopefully emerging from an ocean without shore.
We must not forget to record, in praise of the dove, that
the raven, which was sent forth first, though he “went forth
to and fro”—or, as it may be rendered, ‘going forth and return-
ing —yet brought no tidings. He gladdened not the hearts
of the family in the ark. His return heralded not the dawning
of hope and joy. He came and sat down amid the darkness
which fell upon the waters, and upon the ark, and upon the
hearts of the imprisoned family—he sat, a gloomy bird, and
inspiring gloom He came—he sat = the bird of ill omen.
Not so was the return of the dove. “The dove came in to him
in the evening, and, lo, in her mouth was an olive-leaf plucked
off. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the
earth.”
There is not any one of the birds that has such attractive-
mess about it as the dove. It is not only beautiful in its ap-
pearance, but also exceedingly meat in all its habits. It eats
nothing unclean, drinks only pure water, and feeds upon the
purest seeds. There is something in its very looks, perhaps we
might even say countenance, that wins us in its favor.
'Tis a bird I love, with its brooding note,
And the trembling throb in its mottled throat;
There’s a human look in its swelling breast,
And the gentle curve of its lowly crest.
“The dove,” says one, “is universally admitted to be one of
the most beautiful objects in nature. The brilliancy of her
plumage, the splendor of her eye, the innocence of her looks,
the excellence of her disposition, and the purity of her


T H E D OVE. 37
manners, have been the theme of admiration and praise in every
age. To the snowy whiteness of her wings, and the rich golden
hues which adorn her neck, the inspired Psalmist has been
supposed to allude in these elegant strains:
‘Though ye have lien among pots, -
Yet ye shall be as the wings of a dove, -
Covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.’”
Such, the sacred writer would say, is the difference which
manifests itself in every one before and after he is washed from
his sins. As a sinner, he is sooted and soiled, as one lying
among pots and ashes; but as a saint, he shines in the beauteous
robes of holiness, “as the wings of a dove covered with silver
and yellow gold.”
The mildness, meekness, tenderness, and loveliness of “dove
eyes” have been often noticed. Chaucer alludes to it in his
“Assemble of Foules,” in which he characterizes various birds.
“There was the dove, with her eyen meke.”
Dove eyes are celebrated in the Holy Scriptures. The Church,
which, like a loving mother, regards her children with the
utmost tenderness, is sometimes called a dove; and the sweet
light of her love is compared to the soft influence of dove eyes.
Compassion beams in her beautiful and attractive face. The
Spouse exclaims,
… Behold, thou art fair, my love;
Behold thou art fair;
Thou hast dove's eyes.”
The light of love which beams in the eye, is the faithful ex-
pression of that which fills the heart. Hence the Church is
poetically represented as looking with mild eyes of love upon
her confiding children.
D

38 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Of our blessed Saviour, “mild and meek,” who would not
break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax, and who
when he was reviled, answered not again, it is said,
“His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of water,
Washed with milk and fitly set.”
Dove eyes, which are always bright and lovely, assume a pecu-
liarly clear tenderness when these birds have washed and drank
at the crystal brook. Then their eyes seem softly bright, as if
washed with milk, and beautifully set, like gems enamelled
with gold. This is the emblem of the Beloved, who was holy,
harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. -
“Oh how benevolent and kind,
How mild ! and ready to forgive ''' -
We know that the eye is the mirror of love, as the dove is
the emblem of it. Even among the ancient pagans, doves were
sacred to Love. They represented the chariot of the god of
love as being drawn by doves How apt is the emblem
Their whiteness represents the purity of love. Their soft
bright eyes exhibit the intelligence and tenderness of love.
Their tones of mournful tenderness are as the impassioned
sighings of love in absence.
“Deep in the wood, thy voice I list, and love
Thy soft complaining song—thy tender cooing;
0, what a winning way thou hast of wooing!
Gentlest of all thy race, sweet turtle-dove.”
It must here be remarked, in order to afford opportunity for
explanation, that there are passages in the Prophets which
represent the dove as a fierce and murderous bird. Thus, in
Jeremiah:


THE DO W. E. 39 -
“The land is desolate because of the fierceness of the dove.
Let us go to our own people to avoid the sword of the dove.
They shall flee, every one, for fear of the sword of the dove.”
To make such passages intelligible, and to reconcile them with
what we have just said of the mild habits of this bird, it need
only be remembered that the nation which warred against the
Jews bore a dove on their ensigns. Thus the fierce dove was
the terrible banner of their enemies. - -
The child-like simplicity, purity of intention, and gentleness
of manner, which characterize the dove, are held up, in the
sacred Scriptures, as a pattern for Christians, and especially for
Christian ministers, to imitate. “Be ye wise as serpents, and
harmless as doves,” said our blessed Saviour to his disciples.
“The wisdom of the serpent enables the believer to discern
between good and evil, truth and error; the simplicity of the
dove renders him inoffensive and sincere, that he may not
deceive or injure his neighbor.” It is not only a beautiful, but
also an influential Christian character, in which both these
virtues are in a well-balanced manner combined. Beautifully
does the poet speak to the young, in allusion to this twofold
virtue. -
“If thou wouldst earn thy Saviour's praise,
Whose eye regards the young;
Let meek discretion guide thy ways,
And kindness rule thy tongue.
“So shalt thou learn to keep in sight
The wisdom from above;
With circumspection to unite
The mildness of the Doy E.
|
-


40 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Sweet bird her guileless ways I know;
Then let me learn from thence,
To study peace where’er I go,
And never give offence.
Do Thou, blest spirit, source of peace,
Thy heavenly grace impart;
Bid every angry passion cease,
And sanctify my heart.
The dove is a migratory bird. When the cold and stormy
days which foretoken the approach of winter are at the door,
the dove begins to sigh after a more congenial clime, and pre-
pares for its flight to the sunny south. During the last days
of its stay, it seems restless, sad, and lonely; and at length it
rises high into the air, and wings itself away beyond the reach
of cold and of storms. This the royal Poet noticed, and it
suggested to him one of his sweetest strains. He feels the un-
congeniality of earth. On all sides there is restlessness, and he
is restless too. He looks away from the noisy world toward
some blessed spot of peace not yet found on earth, or, as it
lies before the vision of his faith, in Heaven. He sees that
birds, pained by the roughness of the climate, hie away to sun-
nier lands; why may not restless mortals do the same?
“Oh that I had wings like a dovel
For then would I fly away, and be at rest.
Lo, then would I wandeur far off,
And remain in the wilderness. Selah.
I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest."
When the dove returns from the south, it is one of the heralds
of Spring—the season of joy and love. Hence its voice is
associated with the Saviour's gracious approach to His people.

T H E D OVE. 41
When He, the Sun of Righteousness, has been for a time
absent, it is winter in the Church, and in the believer's soul;
but when he draws near again and smiles, it is as the breath
of spring from the “sweet south.” Then his children may sing
again in joy and love:
“Lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone;
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.”
The cooing of the dove is very plaintive and mournful. Its
peculiar notes touch the heart, and inspire us with a kind of
pleasant sadness, like the music of Ossian, that steals, in the
soft summer moonlight, over “Ardven's gloomy vale!”
Oft have I listened, and stood still,
As it came softened up the hill,
And deemed it the lament of men,
Who languished for their native glen.
The music of the dove is said to become still more mournful
when it loses its mate, by natural death, or at the hands of
some cruel fowler In such bereavement it sits alone in solitary
places, seemingly overtaken with real sorrow; and it is said
that, in some cases, it becomes so disconsolate as even to die of
grief! To this cooing of the dove, as a token of deep sorrow,
Hezekiah alludes when he refers back in recollection to that
sickness of which he expected to die:
“I did mourn as a dove'
So also Isaiah represents sinners, who had brought upon
themselves sorrow at last, as saying;

D 2
42 T H E B I R D S OF THE BIBLE.
“We are in desolate places as dead men;
We roar all like bears,
And mourn sore like doves.”
Nahum makes allusion to the same mournful habit of this bird,
when he speaks of the desolations of Nineveh, and the going
forth of its inhabitants into captivity. They shall be led away
“As with the voice of doves,
Tabering upon their breasts.”
As we are sympathetic beings, the mournful cooing of the
dove has the power of waking similar sorrows in our own
bosom. Thus this bird has, in some cases, been made as the
voice of John the Baptist, preaching repentance in the wilder-
ness, and the occasion of moving poor sinners to that godly
sorrow which worketh repentance unto salvation, and needeth
not to be repented of. To illustrate this, we will refer to an
actual occurrence. “There was once a pirate, who was asso-
ciated with a band of the most desperate villains that ever
annoyed the navigation of the Florida coast. This man had
frequent occasion to repair to certain wells, near which the
doves nestled, and their soft and melancholy cry was the means
of awakening in his breast feelings which had long slumbered,
and of melting his heart to repentance. He was accustomed to
linger at the spot, and to contrast his guilty and wretched life
with former days of comparative innocence and peace. He said
that he never left the wells without increased fears and mis-
givings respecting futurity; and at last he became so deeply
moved by these notes, the only soothing sounds he ever heard
during his life of horrors, that he poured out his soul in suppli-
cations for mercy, and firmly resolved to abandon his desperate
companions and mode of life, and return to his family, who



T H E D OVE. 43
were deploring his absence. His escape from his vessel was
accompanied by many difficulties and dangers; but no danger
seemed to him comparable to that of living in the violation of
human and divine laws. At last he happily reached his home,
and settled in peace among his friends. Thus were the notes
of this gentle bird employed as a means of penetrating the
sinner's heart, and reclaiming him from the error of his ways.”
Such is the strange power which the melancholy, saddening,
and yet soothing notes of the dove exercise over the human
heart. There are few who have not felt something of this
power upon their own spirits, when listing to the cooing of the
dove on a still summer Sabbath evening.
After what has just been said, we may, perhaps, more readily
see the reason why, in the New Testament, the dove appears as
the symbol of the Holy Spirit. It is peculiarly his office to
awaken the heart to tenderness and penitence. It is his to
convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of a judgment
to come; and, by his “still small voice” of love, to call the
wandering prodigals from their rovings in sin, back to their
father's house. -
At the Saviour's baptism, “the Holy Ghost descended in a
bodily shape like a dove upon him.” This, says one, was to
signify what Christ is: “1. In his own nature to them that
come to him; namely, meek, harmless, and loving. 2. What
he is in the execution of his office; even He by whom the
Father is pacified, and who brings the tidings that God's wrath
is assuaged, as the dove with the olive-branch did of the
retiring waters of the flood. 3. What He is in the operations
of His spirit upon His people, by which they are made meek,
harmless, and lowly as doves.”
The dove has a very forgiving spirit. If a breach takes place
44 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
between two, they are immediately reconciled to each other
again; and they manifest their renewed love by embracing one
another. It quickly forgets the severest injuries; as the spoiling
of its nest, and the taking away of its young. Of a like mind
is the Spirit, who, when He is grieved away from the heart,
and when despite is done to His grace, returns again. He
cleaves longest and last to the reprobate He is grieved and
spurned; but He forgives, returns, and wooes again! Of a like
spirit are also all those in whom lives the grace of the “hea-
venly Dove.” Amid injuries and insults they love on, and love
ever. They avenge not in wrath – they smite not when
smitten.
“They let the present injury die,
And long forget the past.”
It is well known that doves go in pairs. Two seem bound
to each other like David and Jonathan. This is the male and
female. Their conjugal fidelity, and their love for each other,
are often mentioned and praised. When two doves have once
chosen one another as mates, they continue one through life.
Thus they become the emblem of the marriage union, and of
that still higher mystical marriage between Christ and his
Church, and his saints, which the waters of tribulation cannot
quench, and which the floods of death cannot drown. The one
sets the other as a seal upon its heart, so that no allurement
can invade their love, or divide them. Its love belongs all to
its faithful mate. So also are Christ and His Church, and His
saints, bound together in holy jealousy and enduring love. This
explains that strong language in the Song of Solomon:
“My dove, my undefiled, is but one:
She is the only one of her mother,
She is the choice one of her that bare her.”
.


T H E D OVE. 45
It is said that one kind, namely, the black dove, after the
death of her mate, continues in a widowed state for life; and
the turtle-dove, as already mentioned, often dies of grief for
her companion.
“My dove, my undefiled, is but one!”
There is none other that can charm again Having lost her
first, her only love, the world seems dreary and desolate. She
sits in lonely places now, and calls mournfully for the one that
returns no more to her side. Yet still she calls, and the woods
mourn, in symphonious echoes, for the departed songster. Per-
haps she fancies that her mate has only hidden, and hears –
but being displeased, will not come. This may serve to explain
the earnest and affectionate language which the forlorn Church
addresses to her absent Spouse:
“Oh, my dove, that art in the clefts of the rocks,
In the secret places of the stairs,
Let me see thy countenance,
Let me hear thy voice;
For sweet is thy voice,
And thy countenance is comely.”
The dove is a great home-bird. It loves its own grove beyond
all other localities. When it is tamed, it is so attached to its
homestead, that if it is carried away many miles, it will soon
find its way home again. On account of this habit, it did, in
former times, become very useful in the way of carrying letters.
When one of the family went from home, he took doves from
the cot with him, and when he wished to communicate any
thing to those left behind, he tied a letter round the neck of
one of his doves, and it was carried home, as news from a far

46 - THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
country, more faithfully and more speedily than is now done by
mail. It seems that this use of doves was known quite early.
“Mention is made,” says one, “of these winged letter-carriers
by the ancient classic writers, and by the Arabian poets. By
this means victories were announced, and communication was
carried on with besieged cities. ‘Of what use, says Pliny,
‘ were sentinels, circumvallation, or nets obstructing the rivers,
when intelligence could be conveyed by aerial messengers. But
in later times, the cunning of man converted this practice into
one of doubt and danger, and it fell into disuse. During the
time of the crusades, at the siege of Tyre, pigeons were observed
hovering over the city, and being suspected of being carriers,
one of them was captured by the besieging army, and laden
with false intelligence. The poor bird conveyed its message,
and thus became the means of the city's downfall!”
There is, no doubt, an allusion to the carrier-dove in the
passage, “Curse not the king, no, not in thy thought; and
curse not the rich in thy bed-chamber; for a bird of the air
shall carry the voice, and they which have wings shall tell the
matter.” From any distance, and out of any secret place, it
shall be borne quickly to the ears of him against whom it is
spoken, as news is borne upon the wings of the dove.
The prophet Isaiah alludes to the strong love of home,
amounting almost to home-sickness, which causes the captive
dove, as soon as it obtains its freedom in a distant land, hastily
to return. He sees, in vision, the captive Israelites, freed by
the decree of Cyrus, returning with joyful haste to the land of
their fathers. It reminds him of the return of these birds,
after long absence, to their cots. “Who are these that fly
as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?” They shall

T H E D OVE. 47
return in hasty trepidation, and with tremblings of joy. “They -
shall tremble as a dove out of Egypt; and as a dove out of the -
land of Assyria; and I will place them in their houses, saith
the Lord.” So ought sinners to return to the out-stretched
arms of their inviting Saviour. So ought saints long to return
to their Father's house in Heaven.
“The dove let loose in eastern skies,
Returning fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wings, nor flies
Where idle warblers roam.
“But high she shoots, through air, and light, -
Above all low delay, -
where nothing earthly bounds her flight, -
Nor shadow dims her way.
“So grant me, God, from every care
And stain of passion free,
Aloft, through virtue's purer air,
To hold my course to Thee!
“No sin to cloud, no lure to stay,
My soul, as home she springs,
Thy sunshine on her joyful way,
Thy freedom on her wings!”
It was, no doubt, because the dove, like the lamb, is so gentle
and innocent, that it was directed to be offered in sacrifice as
a sin-offering. As it was difficult for those who came from
remote parts of the Holy Land to bring doves with them, the
priests permitted the selling of these birds in the holy place of
the temple. Our Saviour, however, declared this to be a pro-

48 - T H E B I R D S OF THE BIB L E.
fanation of the sanctuary; and hence, on one occasion, he
“began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple,
and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats
of them that sold doves.”
According to the ceremonial law, those who were too poor to
offer a lamb, were permitted to bring two doves. Thus Mary,
the mother of our blessed Saviour, brought as an offering for
her first-born, “A pair of turtle-doves." Here I must pause !
Oh, what thoughts and feelings crowd upon me now Jesus
was Lord of all, and he made an offering for all, and yet he is
presented in the temple with the sacrifices of the poor Hear
it, O heavens: hear it, O earth He who is greater than the
temple, is brought with the sacrifices of the poor But they
are doves—beautiful, meek, mild, lovely doves! In this let us
rejoice; for they are the embodied prophecies of good things
that shall come to us by Him
Such are the divine teachings associated with the dispositions
and habits of this sacred bird. Let us think of them whenever
we see it sit in the grove, lonely like a prophet, and hear its -
solemn notes, which seem so like voices from a far-off land,
calling the wanderers home.
We subjoin the following beautiful poem, which was written
some years ago, the author being an invalid, whose protracted
illness was brought on by over-exertion in benevolent labor, and
whose beautiful life, through a long period of suffering, grew
steadily ripe for a higher state. The poem was suggested by
Poe's Raven, and is, in some measure, a response to that
production.



- THE DO W. E.
49
T H E D OVE.
B Y M A R Y TO W N S E N D.
'Twas midnight, solemn, dark, and deep,
And vainly I had courted sleep,
When worn with pain, with anguish toss'd,
Hope, faith, and patience nearly lost,
Breaking the solemn stillness round,
A gentle, soft, and murmuring sound,
Making the stillness more profound.
I hushed my breath !—again it came !—
My heart beat faster—still the same
Low, gentle murmur met my ear,
Approaching nearer and more near :
A single sound, yet soft and clear,
And strangely fraught with memories dear.
A flood of clear and silvery light
Then burst upon my raptured sight,
Filling my little chamber quite,
And in that light a bird was seen;
Not “ grim and black with stately mien,”
But purely white and beautiful,
With look so mild and dutiful;
A lovely bird with plumage white,
In that calm, still, and clear moonlight.
Floating a moment round my head,
It rested opposite my bed
Beside a picture, lovelier
Than heathen gods, and holier; *
* “Rested on a bust of Pallas.” – Raven.
E

50
T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Two beauteous babes, whose sinless eyes
Bespeak them still in Paradise—
Whose loving, soft, and gentle eyes,
Tell where that land of beauty lies.
There sat the radiant white-winged bird—
I listened, but no sound I heard —
And then I spoke: “Sweet bird,” I said,
“From what far country hast thou fled ”
Whence com'st thou, and why com'st thou here
Canst thou bring aught my soul to cheer”
Hast thou strange news? Speak, gentle dove "
And the bird answered – “God Is LovE.”
“They tell me so,” I faintly said,
“But joy is flown, and hope is dead,
And I am sick and sad and weary,
And life is long and dark and dreary–
Think not thy words my spirit move l’
Still the bird answered – “ GoD Is LovE.”
“Some dearly loved are far away,
And some who fondly near me stay
Are sick and sad and suffering,
While I am weak and murmuring;
Each for the other grieves and tries
To stay the tears that fill their eyes–
Why comes not comfort from above *
Firmly but mournfully the dove
Distinctly answered – “God Is LovE.”
I started up – “The world,” I said,
“Though beautiful it once was made,
Is full of crime and misery now:
Want sits on many a haggard brow:
The warrior draws his bloody sword—
Slaves tremble at the tyrant's word—




T H E D OV E. 51
Vice honored — virtue scorned, we see —
Why are these ills allowed to be?”
He raised his head, that soft-eyed dove,
As though my boldness he'd reprove,
Then bowed and answered – “God Is LovE.”
“Forgive,” I said, in accent mild,
“I would I were again a child;
I've wandered from the heavenly track,
And it is late to journey back;
My wings are clipped, I cannot soar,
I strive to mount, but o'er and o'er
My feeble wings I raise in vain –
I flutter, sink, and fall again '''
In low but earnest tones the dove
Still softly murmured—“GoD Is LovE.”
“Thou movest me strangely, wondrous bird
My soul is strongly, deeply stirred—
My heart grows lighter—may I still
My mission upon earth fulfil,
Proving my love to God sincere,
By doing all my duty here;
Shall past omissions be forgiven,
And shall the weary rest in heaven?”
He spread his wings, that radiant dove,
And cheerily answered – “GoD Is LovE!”
“Thanks, heavenly messenger,” I cried,
“Remain that picture still beside;
Surrounded by the light of Truth,
Companion meet for sinless youth;
Thou blessed type of Love and Peace,
My hope and faith thou’lt still increase;
Be ever near me, gentle dove,
I know, I feel that “ GoD Is LovE *




(ſt sunlulu.
Ye mind me of my childhood days, -
Ye chattering, twittering birds; -
Ye mind me of my father's ways,
My mother's looks and words.
Ye mind me of the work and play,
Of childhood's pleasant summer day.
WE place the Swallow next the Dove, because, like it, it is
an innocent, harmless, friendly, and domestic bird. Besides, it
occupies a prominent place in the recollections of us all. It is
twice sacred in our associations. Once because it is a bird of
the Bible, and again, because it is a bird of our childhood
home.
Who thinks of birds without including the swallow Its
form, its movement, and its music, are all deeply engraved upon
the tablet of our hearts, amid those impressions which we re-
ceived first, and will recollect longest. Who can think of his
father's barn, his father's chimneys, and his father's meadow,
without remembering the swallow
Let us see. Do you not remember the swallows? How they
were out so early in a summer morning, how they were almost
ever on the wing, how they swept over the meadow, zigzagged
E 2 (53)

54 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
over the clover-field, skimmed the limpid lake, whisked around
the chimney or tower, in the warm twilight of a summer
evening! How gracefully they swung up to their nests under
the eaves of the roof– and what a chattering they caused from
open mouths that reached out over the nest! How they swept
away again in a minute with a tweet ! sloping downward as if -
they would fall to the earth, and then rose and bounded away
How they sat in lines, and twittered upon the top of the house
or barn; and how that twittering increased when one that had
been soaring about came and perched among them, looking
politely first on one side and then on the other; and, after a
few moments' conversation, was off and away ! How swiftly
and unhurt they darted through the air-holes in the gable of
the barn — in and out, and away !
Such was the swallow. Surely you cannot have forgotten it.
If you were now to return to the old homestead, and take yOur
position for an hour in front of the old barn, you would see the
same sight.
“The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed.”
Other things have changed; the stream has worn a deeper
channel—the young trees around the house are old, and the old
trees are dead – the fields are more, and the woods are less—
even the old house is remodelled, and its familiar furniture
changed — but there are the swallows: nothing has better pre-
served the identity of the place. Yea, more. The light-hearted
companions of your youth have changed, have flown, are dead!
Loving parents, brothers, and sisters may not be there to smile
a welcome to your return; but the swallows twitter as gaily as
ever upon the roof, shoot as swiftly around the barn, sail as
gracefully over the meadow, and dance as joyously in the



T H E SWALLOW. 55
summer sky. You yourself may have changed; your hair may
be grey, your steps trembling, your heart heavy, and your
countenance sedate and sad, from the blight and blast of weary
years, yet the swallows seem not to change — they are now, in
their habits and ways, what they were years agone. Though
they are not the same swallows which we knew in our youth,
yet, in another sense, they are the same. These are as those
were. These do as those did; and we love them as we did
those, who, like many of the loved ones of our childhood, have
fled to a lovelier, sunnier, and more genial clime !
The swallow is a great favorite among the poets. To this
we know but one exception, and that is one, to use a homely
expression, whose tongue is no slander. A very small animal
may throw mud upon an elephant, and a filthy bug may draw
a trail of slime over the petals of the prettiest and purest
flower; what should hinder Anacreon from speaking evil of the
swallow 2 Yes, this Anacreon, who is he We will tell thee,
kind reader; and we will have thee to agree with us, that the
blame of such a creature is praise to the swallow. Though not
much is known of him, as he falls into that class of beings
whose memory shall rot, yet it is known that he was a pagan,
who lived sometime about the sixth century before Christ. He
divided his time between gluttony, drinking wine, writing
wanton verses, and sleep – better for the world, had this latter
calling engaged him all the time. It was his exceeding fond-
mess of sleep which occasioned his wicked philippic against our
bird. It was on this wise : — it is known that the swallow is
an early riser. Scarce has the first ray of the morning gilded
the orient, when it is on the wing, with a tweet, to seek food for
its young; or else sits twittering and chattering upon the roof,
to relieve its own happy heart of part of its joy. Now it came
56 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIB L E.
to pass that there was a swallow's nest near the window where
this old Anacreon was sleeping. Moreover, it is fair to suppose,
from what we know of his habits, that he had been on a
debauch late the previous night. So, in the morning, when he
should have been up, he was lying abed ſeverish and drowsy,
and yet he could not sleep. A man whose brain is full of the
vapors of wine, and half asleep, always imagines that he is tor-
mented from without, when really he is tormented from within.
So his fancy easily turned the cheerful swallow into a fiend
come to punish him before his time. Up starts the old slug-
gard in a perfect rage, and while the fiend-like images of his
wine-mania are still floating before his feverish brain, he sets
down a number of the most ungracious and abusive lines
against the swallow ! Just read, and then say whether he has
not recorded for posterity his own shame, without having
injured one feather of the bird.
Foolish prater, what dost thou
So early at my window do,
With thy tuneless serenade?
Well’t had been had Tereus made
Thee as dumb as Philomel;
There his knife had done as well.
Just think of this You may have forgotten, kind reader, the
case to which allusion is here made. Philomela was the
daughter of Pandion, King of Athens; and Tereus, King of
Thrace, was married to her sister. To hide an awful crime,
Tereus took a knife and cut out the tongue of Philomela!
Thus the wrathy, murderous Anacreon would deal with the
innocent swallow; because it reminded him that he ought to
be up, when he was too drunk and drowsy to rise! Hear him
out:



T H E SWALLOW. 57
In thy undiscovered nest
Thou dost all the winter rest,
And dreamest o'er thy summer joys,
Free from the stormy season's noise,
Free from th’ ill thou’st done to me;
Who disturbs or seeks out thee 7
It has no need of being sought out, as you have, lazy Anacreon
It is not given to wine; and, therefore, being regular in its
habits, it knows its time to rise. But only just hear how the
old debauchee values his dreams! They must have been sweet
and precious, begotten amid the vapors of an old besotted man's
brain He must have dreamed of wine and sleep.
Hadst thou all the charming notes
Of the wood's poetic throats,
All thy art could never pay
What thou hast ta'en from me away.
Cruel bird! Thou'st ta'en away
A dream out of my arms to-day;
A dream that ne'er must equall'd be
By all that waking eyes may see.
Thou, this image to repair,
Nothing half so sweet or fair,
Nothing half so good canst bring,
Though men say thou bring'st the Spring.
What do you think was the end of the only poet who could
write such lines in abuse of the swallow 2. He died from suffo-
cation, in consequence of swallowing a grape-stone, while in the
act of drinking wine! -
Now, by way of contrast to this spite of a sluggard, read the
verses of another poet, who praises the diligence and activity
of the swallow, and beautifully commends its example to the
young. Hear how sensibly, earnestly, and beautifully he
speaks to all who would make the most of a short life:
T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Take joy in action, stretch thy wing,
Mark high above thee frolicking
In rapid flight, yon airy thing, —
And do the same.
If yet thou'rt in the spring of life,
Youth in freshness, vigor rife,
Fill a part in wholesome strife,
And earn a name.
If the warm summer of thy days
Surround thee with meridian blaze,
Dare thee the fire with steady gaze,
For there shines fame.
But if the labor of thy soul,
Hath reared the grape, and filled the bowl,
Till nature's riches round thee roll,
Use Well the same.
So that when freezing winter come,
Thou shalt have lost the wish to roam
From a well-stored and garnished home,
In thine own mind.
A home too warm for friends to leave thee,
Too bright for selfish care to grieve thee,
Too strong for treach'ry to deceive thee,
Or foes to find.
There shalt thou bless the daily pinion,
That scorned to trail as luxury's minion,
But entered on the large dominion
Of the bluff wind :
And bore thee with unerring force
Along thine enterprising course,
Leaving the slothful to remorse, –
Far, far behind.


T H E SWALLOW. 59
Swallows have some other peculiar habits, in addition to those
already alluded to, with which we do not so easily become
acquainted from common observation. Their visual powers are
extremely keen and quick. This is of great advantage to them
in darting after flies, which they catch on the wing, as food for
themselves and their young. They live principally on small
winged insects, and are especially fond of bees. The observant
Chaucer has not overlooked this propensity of our bird.
“The swalowe, murdrer of the bees smale,
That maken honie of floures fresh of hew.”
This accounts for their habit of flying near the earth, over
meadows, clover-fields, mill-dams, rivers, and lakes.
Who has not seen a swallow feeding her young in the nest?
As the parent swings, by a beautiful curve, up to the nest, a
row of open mouths are extended over its edge, each of which
receives its morsel in turn. “The little ones, when fully
fledged, are enticed to fly by their parents, who, shortly after
their first essays, lead them to the sides of fields, roads, or
rivers, where you may see them alight, often not far from each
other, on low walls, fence-stakes, and rails, or the withered
twigs or branches of some convenient tree, generally in the
vicinity of a place in which the old birds can easily procure
food for them. As the young improve in flying, they are often
fed on the wing by the parent birds. On such occasions, when
the old and young birds meet, they rise obliquely in the air.
and come close together, when the food is delivered in a moment,
and they separate to continue their gambols. In the evening
the whole family retires to their nest.”
They build their nests of clay, mixed with bits of hay,
straw, or chaff. It has been said, that when they want clay or

60 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
mud, they plunge themselves in water, and then make clay by
rolling themselves in the dust. We think the swallow is much
too cleanly a bird for this. We are rather of opinion that they
resort, for this purpose, to the edges of creeks, rivers, ponds, or
lakes, where they form small pellets of mud, or soft wet clay,
which they carry in their bills to the place where they are
building. Every one must have observed, that these birds are
in the habit of lighting along the banks of streams, the edge
of mill-dams or lakes, and the borders of mud-pools. It is,
beyond doubt, to procure material for their nests. By means
of the wet clay, judiciously mixed with some slender grass,
they cause the building to adhere to the wall or raſter. In this
way, often forty or fifty nests are built along the eaves of a
house or barn, within a few inches of one another.
They seem to be particularly fond of building their nests in
the crevices and recesses of ancient-looking buildings, such as
turrets, towers, and venerable churches. It is to this habit that
the Psalmist so touchingly alludes in the eighty-fourth Psalm.
This beautiful poem was written, most likely, by some pious
Levite, at the time Sennacherib's army lay encamped around
the Holy City, blocking up the way to the temple. Then the
pious heart of the banished Jew, that had often swelled in
holiest devotion and joy in the sanctuary, now aching in
absence, could only gaze at the place which was the home of
its affections, and con over in mournful remembrance the
pleasant things that were of old. He envies the sparrow and
the swallow :
“Yea, the sparrow hath found an house,
And the swallow a nest for herself,
Where she may lay her young,
Even thine altars, O Lord of hosts,
My King and my God.”

T H E S W ALL O W. 61
He feels himself attracted to the sanctuary of God, like the
swallow, which has permission to build its nest there. He
would make that sacred place his abode, as it does, knowing the
blessedness of those that dwell in His house.
In this particular, the choice and habit of this bird put to
shame such as are of far more value than many swallows.
There are not a few who are willing altogether to surrender
their place in the “amiable tabernacles” of God to this bird.
Their pious feelings are not as strong as the instincts of meaner
creatures. Verily, we say unto such, these birds shall rise up
against you and judge you!
The swallow is a migratory bird. It comes to us in spring,
remains during the summer, and disappears again in autumn,
to seek a warmer climate. Dryden has a beautiful allusion to
the instinct of this bird which leads it to migrate.
The swallow, privileged above the rest
Of all the birds, as man's familiar guest,
Pursues the sun in summer, brisk and bold,
But wisely shuns the persecuting cold;
Is well to chancels and to chimneys known,
Tho' 'tis not thought she feeds on smoke alone.
From hence she hath been held of heavenly line,
Endued with particles of soul divine:
This merry chorister had long possessed
Her summer seat, and feathered well her nest,
Till frowning skies began to change their cheer,
And time turned up the wrong side of the year
The shedding trees began the ground to strow
With yellow leaves, and bitter blasts to blow:
Such auguries of winter thence she drew,
Which by instinct of prophecy she knew;
When prudence warned her to remove betimes,
And seek a better heaven and warmer climes.
F


62 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Her sons were summoned on a steeple's height,
And, called in common council, vote a flight.
The day was named, the next that should be fair,
All to the general rendezvous repair,
They try their fluttering wings, and trust themselves in air.
It is said, by some naturalists, that when they pass away in
autumn, “they hide themselves in holes in the earth, or even
in marshes, and under the water, wherein sometimes great
lumps of swallows have been fished up, fixed one to another
by the claws and back; and when they are laid in a warm
place, they move and recover, though before they seemed to be
dead.”
We will not vouch for this idea; neither will we deny that
it may be the case with some kinds of swallows. There are
phenomena in nature far more wonderful, and apparently more
incredible, than this. We are not fully acquainted with the
habits of all the different kinds of swallows; for, it is said,
there are as many as twenty varieties. The most of these,
indeed, all except five kinds, belong to the warmer climates,
and do not visit us. The two kinds, namely, the house
swallow, and the tower or chimney swallow, which are best
known in our climate, and the only ones which seem to be
alluded to in the Bible, come and go with the season, and are
said to breed when absent, as they do with us. They not only
return to our country in the spring, but they enter and occupy
the same nest. This has been satisfactorily proved by tying a
silken thread around the foot of the departing swallow, by
which it has been recognized again on its return with the next
SeaSOn. -
Its flight, in departing or returning, is exceedingly swift. By
a strange instinct, it knows the exact time for moving. All at

T H E SWALLOW. 63
once, on a bright pleasant autumn day, and lo! the swallows
are all gone! Suddenly, on a lovely spring morning, behold
they are here! twittering and twirling, with much joy and
music, around the house and barn.
Through sacred prescience full well they know
The near approach of elemental strife;
The blustering tempest and the chilling snow,
With every want and scourge of tender life.
Thus taught, they meditate a speedy flight;
For this, even now they prune their vigorous wing;
For this consult, advise, prepare, excite,
And prove their strength in many an airy ring.
No sorrow loads their breast, or swells their eye,
To quit their friendly haunts, or native home;
Nor fear they, launching on the boundless sky,
In search of future settlements to roam.
They feel a power, an impulse all divine,
That warns them hence; they feel it, and obey;
To this direction all their cares resign,
Unknown their destined stage, unmarked their way
By allusion to the migratory habits of these sacred birds, the
Prophet Jeremiah gives the Jews a sharp rebuke for their
dullness;
“The turtle, and the crane, and the swallow,
Observe the time of their coming,
But my people know not the judgments of the Lord.”
The swallow knows—so the Prophet would say—when its best
interests require it to move, in order thus to escape from
threatening evil; but sinners are not so wise. When the winter


64 T H E B II: D S OF THE BIBLE.
breaks in, you find no frozen swallow — one that has paid with
its life the penalty of delaying too long; all, all have fled in
time; but you find that sinners die – die dreadfully and for-
ever, because they did not fly to the Saviour before the summer
of their opportunities was ended !
The passage in the book of Proverbs must also be explained
by keeping in mind the allusion which is made to the migratory
habits of swallows.
“As the birds by wandering, as the swallows by flying,
So the curse causeless shall not come.”
That is, as birds do not move from one climate to another
without a cause, so the judgments of God do not come upon
sinners without a cause. The birds move, impelled by a
cause lying deeper than mere impulse or caprice; so the curse
of God comes upon the guilty, not merely that God thereby
may vent his anger, but that the justice and truth of his throne
may be preserved inviolate.
Hezekiah, speaking of his deep affliction, says:
“As a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter.”
There seems to be nothing in the habits of the house swallow
to correspond with this allusion, as none of the noises it makes
seem to have any striking resemblance to the moanings of
agony, or the shrieks of pain. It seems rather to refer to the
chimney swallow, whose chatterings, twitterings, and whinings
in the chimney have a strong resemblance to the quick, deep,
mournful moanings of one whose dull, deep agony is often
suddenly broken in upon by sharp, quick darts of pain.
Only in these four passages, now referred to, is the swallow
mentioned in the Bible. Once it is praised for its love toward


T H E SWALLOW. - 65
the sanctuary of God—once its chattering is made the emblem
of deep grief— and twice its foresight, in removing to a conge-
nial climate before winter breaks in, and thus escaping from
danger in time, is referred to as instructive to sinners who sit
still until they die.
The swallow is not without its honors in legendary lore. Its
sacredness has thrown around it, and some of its doings, an air
of venerable mystery. Did you never hear, kind reader, that
there is to be found, along the shore of the ocean, a small stone
of mysterious virtues, which the swallow uses to open the eyes
of its fledglings; and that this stone is sometimes to be found
in the nest of the swallow, and that he hath a treasure who
finds it? Professor Longfellow, in his beautiful poem Evange-
line, describes the playful innocency of such a stone hunt, on
the part of the two heroes of the poem, Evangeline and
Gabriel, when they were yet children together.
Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests on the rafters,
Seeking with eager eyes that wonderous stone, which the swallow
Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight of its fledglings;
Lucky was he who found that stone in the nest of the swallow :
It is a tradition firmly believed in many a rural neighbor-
hood, that no barn where swallows frequent will ever be struck
with lightning.
Shakspeare has not failed to notice the mystic influence
which swallows are believed to shed upon the air around those
venerable haunts where they love to abide. Thus, in Macbeth :
DUNCAN. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.
BANQUo. This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet,” does approve,
* A species of swallow.








5 F 2
- - -
- - -
THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
By his lov'd mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here; no jutty, frieze, buttress,
Nor coigne of vantage,” but this bird hath made
His pendent bed, and procreant cradle: Where they
Most breed and haunt, I have observed, the air
Is delicate.
- Now there comes up to my mind a reminiscence of my child-
hood How solemnly we were forbidden to kill a swallow ! It
seems as if I could this moment see my father's uplifted finger,
and hear my mother's tender words of warning: “Be careful,
children, and do not kill a swallow.” Wo was to the luckless
wight that was caught stoning its nest! He was sure to expe-
rience a practical commentary upon the latter clause of
Proverbs nineteen and twenty-nine. We would almost as soon
have thought of injuring an infant in its cradle, as of doing
violence to a swallow.
It was a current tradition—in fear of whose fulfilment all
mischievous boys trembled — that if a swallow were killed, all
the cows at the barn where the outrage was committed would
thenceforth yield bloody milk Although we feel sure that
such dire consequences — the awful mark of murder! — would
not have followed, yet who would not feel thankful that he
does not bear about with him that guilty conscience which must
certainly haunt him through life who has ever committed so
graceless a thing as to kill a swallow . In this, as in other
things, we will always reverence the injunctions of our parents,
and ever cultivate the tenderest and friendliest feelings towards
this Bird of the Bible. -
Adieu' friendly birds. We will not forget, as they hover
around our dwellings on the pleasant evenings of summer, to
ask ourselves whether we are as wise, as good, as harmless, as
innocent, and as fond of home, as the swallow.
* Convenient corner.






- -
-
-
-



d it ś , uttulu.
Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings,
And not one of them is forgotten before God?
Sparrow, the gun is levelled; quit that wall!
—Without the will of Heaven I cannot fall.
THE words tzeppar in Hebrew, and struthio in Greek, are
used, in the Sacred Writings, to designate not merely a particu-
lar bird, but also a whole class of birds. There is a particular
bird called sparrow ; but there is also a class of birds which are
called, in general, sparrows; although each one has also its own
specific name. Naturalists, especially Goldsmith, rank all
birds, from what is less in size than a pigeon, down to the
humming-bird, as belonging to the sparrow kind.
Sparrow is, therefore, sometimes synonymous with “little
bird.” This will show the reason why the word is translated
“bird,” as in Leviticus, and at other times “sparrow,” as in
Psalms. As the whole class of birds called sparrows have a
general likeness to each other in all their habits, as well as
their size, it is not necessary to determine—which it is perhaps
impossible to do — whether the Sacred Writings refer to the
(67)
68 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
species of sparrow in particular, or to all little birds in general.
We will confine ourselves to the bird which is known under the
specific name, sparrow; a description of which will make plain
all the allusions to it found in the Bible.
There are three kinds of sparrow known among us; and
they are, no doubt, the same as are alluded to by David, King
of Israel, and by Jesus, our ever-blessed Redeemer and Saviour.
I. THE SONG SPARROW.
This is the most numerous and most generally diffused of all
our sparrows. It is also the earliest, latest, and sweetest
songster. It is the first to break, with its hymns of joy, the
silence of winter in early spring-time; and its notes are heard
latest amid the fading glories of autumn. It is said that some
of these pleasant little birds even remain with us during the
winter, closely sheltered in thick grass and dense bushes, in
meadows and swamps. -
In summer the song sparrow sits, for hours at a time, in some
small bush, chanting its pleasant and artless notes, as if for
their own sweet sake. It loves the banks of rivers, the borders
of meadows, and the outer edges of swamps; no doubt on
account of the low brush which abounds in such localities, in
which it particularly delights. -
It builds its nest upon the ground, under the end of a tufted
sod; building it of fine dry grass, and lining it softly with
horse-hair. Sometimes, also, it builds in the low thick branches
of pine and cedar trees, a few feet from the ground. It is of a
chestnut color, marked and streaked with dirty white. Its
micely-rounded breast is decked with small spots of chestnut
color, like beauty spots on a lady's cheek or chin.




THE SPA R ROW. 69
II. THE CHIRPING SPARROW.
This species is perhaps still more familiar and domestic than
the song sparrow. In the summer it loves villages and cities,
where it builds its nest in the branches of trees in the streets
and gardens, and gathers for its food the crumbs which are
scattered in the yard and before the door. It lines its nest
softly with the hair of various animals, as it finds it.
In the following beautiful poem of Wordsworth on “The
Sparrow's Nest,” there is a charming allusion to the domestic
habits of this bird, which dwelt “ hard by his father's house.”
Besides, there is a sweet lesson of tenderness and love taught
in these touching lines, which begin with the sparrow, “ but do
not end there.”
Behold, within the leafy shade
Those bright blue eggs together laid :
On me the chance-discovered sight
Gleamed like a vision of delight.
I started – seeming to espy
The home and sheltered bed,
The sparrow's dwelling, which, hard by
My father's house, in wet or dry,
My sister Emeline and I
Together visited.
She looked at it as if she feared it;
Still wishing, dreading to be near it:
Such heart was in her, being then
A little prattler among men.
The blessing of my later years
Was with me when a boy:



70 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;
And humble cares, and delicate fears;
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;
And love, and thought, and joy.
Towards autumn, the sparrow becomes less sociable, and
departs to the fields and brush-wood, until the weather grows
too severe, when it leaves for the south. The frontlet of this
little bird is black, its crown is chestnut color, its upper parts
are a pale ash color. It has a very meat, pretty, modest
appearance. -
III. THE FIELD SPARROW.
This is the smallest of the sparrows. It loves dry fields
20vered with long grass–such as grows in ploughed fields after
harvest – no doubt for the sake of the grass seed. It builds a
small nest on the ground, often at the foot of a bush, and lines
it. with horse-hair, gracefully bent to the shape of the nest. It
does not sing, but indulges in a kind of chirruping, something
Iike a cricket—tsip or ship perhaps comes near to it. May we
not say its speech betrayeth it, and proves it to be the veritable
tºeppar of the Hebrews? No doubt in this, as in other cases, it
received its name from the noise it makes.
This species of sparrow abounds in the Middle and Southern
States, but especially in the Carolinas and Georgia. When any
thing disturbs them, they haste in flocks to the bushes, where they
cluster so closely together, that a dozen may be shot at a time.
In color this resembles the other two species. -
All these different kinds of sparrows are friendly birds, and
love the habitations of men. They are pert, quick, loquacious
creatures, and very fond of motion. They are not found in


T H E S P A R ROW. 71
deep solitudes, or in lonely deserts, but in the open and
thickly-settled country. Indeed, this is a peculiarity of all
small birds.
various reasons exist why sparrows and other small birds
love the open country, and the habitations of men. Here they
are not so much exposed to those larger birds which are often
their enemies, and seek to devour them, since these ferocious
birds generally dread the abodes of men, and, like all robbers,
keep at a distance. Tender buds, seeds, and insects, which
constitute the food of all small birds, are also not so abundant
in deep forests, as in cultivated regions. Thus, fear on the one
side, and favors on the other, make these birds the companions
of man. A wise and good God has ordered it so. They fill
the groves and trees around the homestead with their melody;
and, in the fields, they speed the weary hours of toil with their
cheerful songs. “All is yours!” This is God's gracious testa-
ment to his saints. For man—for the joy of man, a kind God
has made it so. Let him that has a heart for it praise Him!
The love which these little birds have for the society of man,
and their distaste for deserts and loneliness, explain that beau-
tiful passage in the eighty-fourth Psalm :
“Yea, the sparrow hath found an house,
And the swallow a nest for herself,
Where she may lay her young,
Even thine altars, O Lord of hosts,
My King and my God.”
This Psalm was, no doubt, written by one of the sacred poets
while in banishment from the sanctuary. In his exile he
remembered with what joy and music the different domestic
birds, and among them the sparrow, dwelt around the sanctuary

72 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIB I, E.
of the Lord. He calls to mind how he often saw them as he
went up to worship, their nests and their brood undisturbed.
They are still there, while he is afar off! They enjoy a privi-
lege which his heart aches to enjoy, but which is now denied
him. The allusion is very touching! As one that is home-
sick longs, with heart oppressed, to see even the smallest
familiar object around the homestead, and, in a sense, envies
even the birds that sing in the trees along the garden fence and
in the orchard, so does this pious child of the heavenly Father,
the tendrils of whose heart are twined in eternal associations
around the sanctuary, as its home, long to exchange his painful
exile for the place of the swallows and the sparrows, which no
dire misfortune can chase from the home which they have
chosen, and in which they delight.
From the small size of the sparrow, and the consequent
smallness of its value in the market, our blessed Saviour takes
occasion to illustrate the doctrine of particular providence.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing and one of them
shall not fall to the ground without your Father. Fear ye not,
therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.”
This illustration and assurance of God's providence ought to
strengthen the hearts of all Christians who are of “little faith.”
If God cares for so small a bird as the sparrow, defends it from
the snare and arrow of the fowler, and provides for it when it
is hungry, will He not much more do so to an immortal being,
created in His image, redeemed by His blood, and destined for
His glory in an endless life? In the sparrow, that bounds so
gaily over the ground before us, there is more than a volume
can teach to inspire confidence and joy in the providence of
God.


T H E S P A R ROW. - 73
“And will my God to sparrows grant,
That pleasure which his children want?”
These trusting little birds, though they do not want for grass
seeds as food, seem nevertheless to take a special delight in
receiving their food by direct gift from the hands of man. To
this end, they often build near the homestead, in order to
receive the crumbs that are there to be found. These, too, are
cheerfully granted them; for there is something so innocent and
conſiding in their habits and conduct, that it even affords plea-
sure to see them as the recipients of our bounty. Often, too,
they even cause additional crumbs to be scattered to them, by
their winning ways. Thus they are the means of opening
wider, with benevolent feelings, the heart which already blesses
them.
As illustrative of this last thought, who does not call to mind
the simple and touching lines of Cowper, on “Sparrows, self.
domesticated in Trinity College, Cambridge.” Here it is:
None ever shared the social feast,
Or as an inmate or a guest,
Beneath the celebrated dome,
Where once Sir Isaac had his home,
Who saw not (and with some delight
Perhaps he viewed the novel sight)
How numerous, at the tables there,
The sparrows beg their daily fare.
For there, in every nook and cell
Where such a family may dwell,
Sure as the vernal season comes,
Their nests they weave in hope of crumbs,
Which, kindly given, may serve with food
Convenient their unfeathered brood:
And oft as with its summons clear
The warning bell salutes the ear,
G.



74 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Sagacious listeners to the sound
They flock from all the fields around,
To reach the hospitable hall,
None more attentive to the call.
Arrived, the pensionary band,
Hopping and chirping, close at hand,
Solicit what they soon receive,
The sprinkled, plenteous donative.
Thus is a multitude, though large,
Supported at a trivial charge;
A single doit would Over-pay
Th’ expenditure of every day,
And who can grudge so small a grace
To suppliants, natives of the place?
The fact that they thus receive friendly and gracious atten-
tions from men does not the less make them beautiful illustra-
tions of God's providential care. Rather the more so, inasmuch
as it would seem that God, in a special manner, opens the heart
of their benefactors, by means of their simple and implicit trust
in their kindness and favor. The faith of the little birds, in
drawing so trustingly near the house and table, seems thus to
create a willingness that they shall gather the crumbs which they
need. Thus Providence does not merely use the kindness of
men, as second causes, by which he provides for his sparrows;
but he uses their own trustiness to render those causes active
and effective in their behalf. Neither is it to be forgotten, that
as these sparrows love the “hospitable hall” where they
receive their gracious supplies, so it is the design of our hea-
venly Father that His kind providential blessings should bind
our hearts even more closely to Him. Who can fail to be
moved in love toward that God who, as the poet says,
“Tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,”


T H E S P A R ROW. 75
and who disposes the heart of man to give crumbs to the
hungry sparrow.
Besides the above, there is only one other passage in the
English Bible where the name of these birds occurs:
“I watch and am as a sparrow
Alone upon the house-top.”
Here, however, it is clear that the word should have been ren-
dered “bird;” as also it is rendered in the German translation.
There is nothing in the habits of the sparrow that can answer
to this allusion. It is not a lonely, mourning, sorrowing bird;
but just the opposite–cheerful, bustling, happy, and fond of
company. Besides, this lonely bird on the house-top is asso-
ciated, in the preceding verse, with the pelican of the wilder-
ress, and the owl of the desert. This bird must thus be like
them in its mature and habits; and the afflicted Psalmist speaks
of his own sorrowful and lonely soul as mingling groans and
lamentations with its own notes of wo, sitting gloomily through
sleepless nights, and, like a nocturnal bird, pouring his grief in
sad notes into the ears of a slumbering world. All this points
to a bird entirely different in its nature and habits from the
Sparrow.
We will not thoughtlessly pass by the sparrow, nor disregard
its artless chirpings, as it leaps away over the field before us, or
sits in the bush beside our path. The sacred poet sung of it,
and the holy Saviour spake concerning it. Sweet and comfort-
ing teachings are associated with it. Though the least in size,
it is not the least interesting of the sacred Birds of the
Bible.

76
THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
LITTLE VERSES TO A LITTLE BIRD.
0, thou art happy, little bird,
So gay and cheerful all the day;
From thee no dire complaints are heard,
Oh, why so happy, sparrow, say?
Ye sow not, neither do you reap,
Nor do you bind up ripened sheaves;
Nor do you wake, while others sleep,
To gather what the reaper leaves.
You toil not as the worldlings do,
You care not as the faithless care;
And yet, I ween, there are but few,
Whose daily wants are half so rare.
Ah! Sparrow, you do trust for good
In God, who daily cares for all;
You ask Him, when you lack for food,
He hears your earnest child-like call.
Why faithless?—are not we more dear
To God, by far, than birds so small?
Then trust in Him, and never fear
The God of Birds, He loves us all.



d it summ.
I heard—alas! 'twas only in a dream— -
A most melodious requiem, a supreme
And perfect harmony of notes, achieved
By a fair Swan, on drowsy billows heaved,
O'er which her pinions shed a silver gleam.
For is she not the votary of Apollo?
And knows she not, singing as he inspires,
That bliss awaits her, which the ungenial hollow
Of the dull earth partakes not, nor desires?
Mount, tuneful bird, and join the immortal choirs'
She soared—and I awoke, struggling in vain to follow.
THE Swan is twice mentioned in the Sacred Scriptures. It is
referred to, in both instances, as one of those birds which the
Jews were not permitted to eat. Some of the learned have
given it as their opinion, with many reasons, good and bad, that
the original word does not designate the Swan, but some other
bird or animal. Some will have it the bat, some the mole, some
the flamingo, some the ibis, and some the goose. Until they
are all agreed among themselves, we will take it to mean the
swan, in harmony with the Latin vulgate, the English and
German translations, and many commentators. After all is
done, it is perhaps safest to rely upon the meaning of the word
- G 2 (77)

TS T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
T-
in Hebrew, which is ºn hºmeſ, to point out the true bird in-
tended. The word means to respire, or to breathe strongly,
which points clearly to the Swan, it having somewhat the habit
of the goose, hissing when it is approached. -
There are several kinds of swan – the tame, the wild, and
the black. The tame swan is beautifully white. The wild
swan is of an ash color along its back and the tip of its wings.
There are also other differences which distinguish them. The
wild bird is almost one-fourth less in size than the tame. There
is also a marked difference in their physical build; more, per-
haps, than a mere change in their habits of life, in the water
and out of it, would effect.
There has been discovered, in New Holland, a new and truly
singular species of swan, of which the ancients knew nothing.
It is smaller than those heretofore known, and its plumage is
perfectly black, except a few of the primary and secondary
quill-feathers, which are white. The bill is of a bright red
color, crossed at the anterior part with a white band. The legs
and feet are of a dull ash color. Black swans are extremely
shy; and, when disturbed, they fly away in a direct line, like
wild geese.
The swam is by nature a water-fowl, like the duck and goose,
resembling also these somewhat in shape. The one species has
long since been tamed, and trained to the new habit of living
around the homestead, like other domestic fowl. It is properly
regarded as one of the most beautiful of the bird kind. Gold-
smith, who always observes nature with the eye of a poet, says:
“There is not a more beautiful figure in nature. In the exhibi-
tion of its form, there are no broken or harsh lines; no con-
strained or catching motions; but the roundest contours, and
the easiest transitions. The eye wanders over every part with

T H E SW AN. 79
insatiable pleasure, and every part takes a new grace with a -
new motion.” Both in the color of its various parts, and in
the harmony of its form, it combines all that is lovely and
attractive. It is white, the emblem of purity – it has a red
beak, the emblem of loyalty —it has a long neck, the emblem
of gentleness and grace.
It loses, however, much of its beauty and gracefulness by
being removed from its watery element, and being confined to
the land. Out of the water, it stretches out its neck stupidly,
and all its motions are awkward and heavy. Although it is so
ungraceful on the land, no sight is more beautiful than a swan
smoothly sailing on the quiet surface of a lake or stream. It
moves in stately majesty, seemingly without any effort, yet
faster than any man can walk, exhibiting a thousand graceful
attitudes. 0 for a sight of what our imagination strives in vain
to picture this, namely: – On a beautiful summer evening to
steal silently up to the outer edge of the rocks which rise
abruptly at the shore of a quiet lake, to watch, through the parted
bushes, a pair of virgin white swans floating leisurely upon the
clear, silvery surface, teaching their cygnets how to sail grace-
fully. See how queen-like they move! See, in the pure
element mirrored, they “float double–swan and shadow !”
See how the water laves their exquisitely carved and curved
bosoms, parting as they float, and breaking into little waves at
each gentle stroke of their “oary feet.” -
Wordsworth, the best descriptive poet in this department,
has given us a life-like picture of the swan upon the water.
Fair is the swan, whose majesty, prevailing
O'er breezeless waters on Locarno's lake,
Bears him on, while proudly sailing
He leaves behind a moon-illumined wake :

80
THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Behold the mantling spirit of reserve
Fashions his neck into a goodly curve;
An arch thrown back between luxuriant wings
Of whitest garniture, like fir-tree boughs
To which, on some unruffled morning, clings
A flaky weight of winter's purest snows!
—Behold as with a gushing impulse heaves
That downy prow, and softly cleaves
The mirror of the crystal flood,
Vanish inverted hill, and shadowy wood,
And pendent rocks, where'er, in gliding state,
Winds the mute creature without visible mate
Or rival, save the queen of night
Showering down a silver light
From heaven, upon her chosen favorite .
In his poem entitled “An Evening Walk,” he has perhaps
still more beautifully described this enchanting bird – alluding
also to some of its interesting habits.
Now, while the solemn evening shadows sail
On red, slow-waving pinions, down the vale;
How pleasant near the tranquil lake to stray
Where winds the road along a secret bay,
By rills that tumble down the woody steeps, -
And run in transport to the dimpling deeps:
Along the “wild meandering shore” to view
Obsequious grace the winding Swan pursue:
He swells his lifted chest, and backward flings
His bridling neck between his towering wings;
In all the majesty of ease, divides
And, glorying, looks around the silent tides;
On as he floats, the silvered waters glow,
Proud of the varying arch and moveless form of snow;
While tender cares and mild domestic loves,
With furtive watch pursue her as she moves;


THE sw AN. 81
The female with a meeker charm succeeds,
And her brown little ones around her leads |
Nibbling the water-lilies as they pass,
Or playing wanton with the floating grass. - |
She, in a mother's care, her beauty's pride
Forgets, unwearied watching every side;
She calls them near, and with affection sweet,
Alternately relieves their weary feet;
Alternately they mount her back, and rest
Close by her mantling wings' embraces prest.
Other poets, also, ever alive to the beautiful, have not failed
to notice the gracefulness of the swan on the bosom of a lake.
Bright creature floating on thine element
As though a fleecy cloud from heaven's gate
Had dropped upon its bosom, thither sent
Unsoiled by touch of earth.
Shelley thinks of the swan upon the quiet surface of the blue
lake, when he beholds the moon in the blue firmament.
The moon sits on the sky,
Like a swan sleeping
On the stilly lake.
Milton, in his description of the creation of the birds, and
their first going forth from the hand of God to seek their ele-
ment and their joy, does not forget our bird.
The swan, with arched neck
Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
Her state with oary feet.
When Scott's beautiful heroine, the Lady of the Lake, was
floating, in a light shallop, near the water's edge, and was
-









































6 -
82 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
suddenly surprised by the approach of the hunter, her graceful
gliding from the shore, and turning to hear his address, is com-
pared to the movements of the swan. What images of grace
and beauty pass before us in the following description:
“A stranger I,” the Huntsman said,
Advancing from the hazel shade.
The maid alarmed, with hasty oar,
Pushed her light shallop from the shore,
And when a space was gained between,
Closer she drew her bosom's screen;
So forth the startled swan would swing,
So turn to prune her ruffled wing.
The poets are fond of calling a gentle, graceful maiden swan-
like. One of the older poets, Chaucer, in his “Court of Love,”
even sees, or thinks he sees, so much resemblance between the
two, that it would take something of a sage to tell them apart.
He opineth, and giveth it as his judgment, that a youth ought
only then to begin to “love's court to direct his voyage,” when
he is sage enough to distinguish between a woman and a
swan ||
Your duty is, as farre as I can gesse,
To love's court to dressen your viage,
As soone as nature maketh you to sage
That ye may know a woman from a swan,
Or whan your foot is growen halfe a span.
Coleridge, when he describes his tender-hearted and lovely
Genevieve, refers most beautifully to this bird. We must quote
the whole poem.


T H E S W A N. 83
Maid of my love, sweet Genevieve!
In beauty's light you glide along :
Your eye is like the star of eve,
And sweet your voice as seraph's song.
Yet not your heavenly beauty gives
This heart with passion soft to glow:
Within your soul a voice there lives!
It bids you hear the tale of wo.
When sinking low the sufferer wan
Beholds no hand out-stretched to save
Fair as the bosom of the Swan
That rises graceful o'er the wave,
I’ve seen your breast with pity heave,
And therefore love I you, sweet Genevieve!
The swan, as it is elegant in its form, and graceful in its
movements, is also refined and delicate in its appetites. It feeds
on corn, bread, and such herbs as grow in the water, or such
roots and seeds as it finds on the margin of streams. It builds
its nest in some retired nook along the bank, or on an islet in
the stream, which it peculiarly loves. The nest is quite a great
stack, built of reeds, rushes, flags, long grass, and sticks. In
building the nest, both the male and female labor industriously
together. It lays seven or eight eggs, beautifully white, and
much larger than those of a goose. The male and female
guard their young together, with great care and jealousy, and
have been known to inflict serious wounds upon intruders,
with their pinions, even to the extent of breaking an arm or
a leg.
It is six weeks before the cygnet breaks through the shell
into the light, and it requires a whole year more for it to arrive
at its full growth. It is a longer time in the shell than any
known bird; which, as some have said, is the prophecy of long

84 - T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
life. The swan is very remarkable for its longevity. Geese
have been known to live a century; but it is said by some that
Swans, which are superior to geese in size, and firmer in their
flesh, live as high as three hundred years!
“Sing me, fair swan, that song which poets dream
—Stand thou a hundred years beside this stream,
Then mayest thou hear perchance my latest breath.”
We cannot refrain from quoting a notice which is given in
* Broderip's Zoological Recreations,” taken from a London paper
of July 9th, 1840. It is entitled, “Death of a celebrated cha-
racter.” It is not only in place when speaking of the age of
swans, but it is highly interesting and suggestive in many other
respects.
“The beginning of last week an exceedingly well-known
character departed this life, namely, OLD JACK, the gigantic and
venerable swan, with which the public have been so long
acquainted on the canal in the enclosure of St. James's Park,
at the advanced age of seventy years. Old Jack was hatched
some time about the year 1770, on the piece of water attached
to old Buckingham House, and for many years basked in the
sunshine of royal favor, Queen Charlotte being extremely partial
to him, and frequently condescending to feed him herself. When
the pleasure-gardens in St. James's Park were laid out, he was
removed there, and his immense size, sociable disposition, and
undaunted courage, have often excited the admiration of the
public. Jack's strength and courage were, indeed, astonishing.
Frequently has he seized an unlucky dog who chanced to -
approach to the edge of his watery domain, by the neck, and
drowned him; and on one occasion, when a boy, about twelve
years of age, had been teasing him, Jack caught him by the leg



















T H E SWAN. 85
of his trousers, and dragged him into the water up to his knees.
Jack, however, never acted on the offensive, and, if not annoyed,
was exceedingly tractable. But the march of modern improve-
ment affected poor Jack as much as it has done thousands of
more pretending bipeds. The Ornithological Society was formed,
and a host of feathered foreigners found their way on to the
canal, with whom Jack had many fierce and furious encounters,
and invariably came off successful. But a legion of Polish geese
at length arrived, who commenced hostilities with Jack. De-
spising every thing like even warfare, they attacked him in a
body, and pecked him so severely, that he drooped for a few
days, and then died. The body of poor old Jack is to be stuffed
for one of the scientific museums.”
The above reference to the disposition of the swan to defend
itself, is just. Though remarkably inoffensive, it will not be
rudely treated or insulted. “Aristotle,” says one, “ has noticed
the pugnacity of the swan, saying, that it will even fight the
eagle—not that the swan will begin the quarrel, but he will not
brook the attack of the Prince of the Birds of Prey.”
Swans, it is said, were formerly held in such high esteem in
England, that, by an act of Edward IV., no one except the son
of a king, or one worth five marks a-year, was permitted to
keep a swan. The penalty for robbing them of their eggs, was
imprisonment for a year and a day, and fine, according to the
King's will. Hear it, ye cruel, wanton nest-robbers! They
were not only valued for their beauty, but they were regarded
as furnishing a rare dish for the feast. The swan graced the
board at the nuptial dinner, when Iphicrates married the King
of Thrace's daughter; and greatly did it shine forth at the
ancient British festivals.” The epicure's eye glistened when he
saw among the dishes, -
H


86 - T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
“The cygnet from St. Mary's wave.”
They are not now so much valued; and it is said that multi-
tudes may be seen sailing in beauteous pride upon the Thames
and the Trent.
The old English law, in regard to the stealing of swans, is
curious, and shows the high estimation in which they were held.
It was the duty of swan owners, as Blackstone says, to have
them “lawfully marked,” when “at large in a public river;”
but “if in any private river or pond,” even “though unmarked,
it is likewise felony to steal them.
2x
The penalty was as follows:
“When a marked swan was stolen in an open and common
river, the purloined bird, if it could be obtained, and, if not,
another swam was hung up by the bill, and the thief was com-
pelled to hand over to the party robbed as much wheat as would
cover all the swan, the operation being effected by pouring the
grain on its head till it was entirely hidden.”
What about the sweet song of the swan . The ancients are
rich and eloquent in their allusions to its music. Who has not
heard, that just before it dies, it breathes forth notes of
unearthly sweetness, to which the poets have compared the last
peaceful breathings of the dying saint, whose farewell to
earth is -
“Like the song of the swan, that is sweetest when dying.”
Drayton, in his Barons' wars, speaks of
“The swan-like dirges of a dying man.”
Thomas Brown, “doctor of phisic,” says, in reference to this
point: “From great antiquity, and before the melody of the
syrens, the musical note of swans hath been commended, and

THE SW AN. 87
that they sing most sweetly before their death. Thus we read
in Plato, that from the opinion of Metempsychosis, or transmigra-
tion of the souls of men into the bodies of beasts most suitable
unto their human condition, after his death, Orpheus the musi-
can became a swan. Thus was it the bird Apollo, the god of
music by the Greeks; and the hieroglyphick of music among
the Ægyptians, from whom the Greeks derived the conception,
hath been the affirmation of many Latines, and hath not wanted
assertors almost from every nation.” After some discussion of
the subject, pro and con, the good doctor very unpoetically
summeth up the arguments, and decideth against the swan,
thus: “When, therefore, we consider the dissention of authors,
the falsity of relations, the indisposition of the organs, and the
immusical note of all we ever beheld or heard of, if generally
taken, and comprehending all swans, or of all places, we cannot
assent thereto. Surely he that is bit with a tarantula, shall
never be cured by this music: and with the same hopes we
expect to hear the harmony of the spheres!” Thus the “doctor”
seemeth even disposed to be witty, in the cruel service of
robbing the world of so beautiful an idea as the Swan's death-
SOng.
Another old writer testifieth upon this subject thus: “Some
say that the swans sing lamentably a little before their death,
but untruly, I suppose: for experience in many hath shewn the
contrarie.” The moderns, often cool, calculating, and skeptical,
have gone still farther than the ancients towards robbing us of
all those musical and poetical associations which we have been
wont to connect with this bird. They not only deny that it
sings in dying, but say that it sings not at all! Hear Gold-
smith, and he a poet! – “The tame swan is the most silent of
all birds; and the wild one has a note extremely loud and dis-

SS T H E BIRDS OF T H E BIBLE.
agreeable. In neither is there the smallest degree of melody.”
- Another author says, “It can only hiss; which it does when
provoked " -
What part shall we take in this controversy % We will have
no part with those that are against the bird. We would rather
charge prosy naturalists with not knowing what music is, than
see the swan lose the melodious honors of a thousand years.
The Greeks say earnestly that the swan does sweetly sing.
Yes, the Greeks, who had the greatest contempt for music—the
Greeks would certainly not say that a bird sings when it does
not sing. We go with the Greeks. We have not only their
word, but their science, and their reasons. We are assured by
them, that the wind-pipe of the swan very much resembles a
musical instrument. Aristotle assures us, that “swans are
camorous, especially at the end of life, and that they pass over
the seas singing.” Agreeably to this sentiment, one of the
English poets gives us a “Song of the dying Swan.”
“I go to soft Elysian shades
And bowers of kind repose;
Where never any storm invades,
Nor tempest ever"blows.
“There in cool streams and shady woods
I'll sport the time away,
Or swimming down the crystal floods,
- Among young halcyons play.”
Pendasius says, on the Latin side, that he “often heard swans
sweetly singing in the Lake of Mantua, as he rowed up and
down in a boat.” Virgil, in his ninth Ecologue, where Lycidas
compares his own strains with those of other poets, modestly
SayS;



















T H E S W A N. 89
“Nam neque adhuc Varo videor nec dicere Cinna
Digna, sed argutos inter strepere anser olores.”
“My own, compared with Cinna's or with Varus' lays,
I gabble like a goose amid the tuneful swans.”
Another author says, “when death calls, lying amid the moist
grass in the shallows of the winding Menander, the white swan
sings its dying song.”
Broderip says, “Ossian makes them the birds of dawning,
pouring forth their song upon the sea-shore before sunrise,
when -
“Lucifer had chased
The stars away, and fled himself at last.”
But whether they sang early in the morning, or at the latest
possible period of life, the mute swans are not condemned to the
silent system, as the name would imply. They may be heard
in spring and summer, murmuring, rather than singing, with a
soft, low voice, plaintive withal, while complacently accompany-
ing their young. Colonel Hawker has printed a few bars of a
domesticated wild swan's melody, the notes being two–C, and
the minor third, E flat—and the gallant writer declares that the
musician-swan kept working his head, as if delighted with his
own performance.”
The grave old English poet Chaucer is also on the right
side of this question. He mentions, in his “ Assembly of
Foules,”
“The jelous swan, ayenst his deth that singeth.”
There is a tradition, that when it is about to die, it soars
up into the air, and expires soaring and singing. The only

H 2 -
90 T II E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
poetical allusion to this conception which we have seen, is in
Shelley —
“Like a dying swan, that soars and sings.”
This tradition evidently had its origin in a beautiful Christian
truth, which it also serves very impressively to illustrate — the
joyful triumph of the dying saint. -
Now hear ! We ourselves say that, in our boyhood, we often
saw swans—that is, we were so instructed to believe—saw swans
sail high in the blue air, going from the “sweet south” toward
the north in spring-time, and that we heard them, while flying,
breathe forth melodious notes of a somewhat mournful kind,
awakening one's feelings to longings after the infinite — not
unlike the plaintive coo of the turtle-dove. Though naturalists
are reluctant to locate these birds in our western world; yet so
we testify, and “tell the tale as it was told to us.” To all
doubters, moreover, we commend the testimony of Audubon,
who saw “vast flocks of swans” on the Upper Mississippi.
The German poet Herder has written a beautiful paramyth,
or mythical allegory, founded on the conception that the swan
only sings when it dies, which we here translate. It is entitled
THE DYING SWAN.
“Must I then alone be mute, and without the power of
song?” So sighed the quiet swan to himself, as he bathed in
the golden lustre of the loveliest evening sky. “I almost alone
am songless in the whole realm of the feathered hosts. True,
I do not envy the chattering goose, the clucking hen, and the
croaking peacock their voices; but you, O sweet Philomele! I



T H E S W A N. 91
envy you, when, charmed and chained by your notes, I sweep
the little waves more softly, and bask, intoxicated with joy, in
the reflected splendor of heaven. Oh, how I would sing of thee,
thou golden evening sun – yes, sing of your lovely light, and
of my own blessedness; and dive in these quiet waters, which
mirror thy rosy light — dive and die!” -
Silently enraptured, the swan sank beneath the surface; and
searcely had he raised himself above the waves again, when a
radiant form, that stood upon the shore, beckoned him towards
itself. It was the god of the evening and morning sun, the
lovely Phoebus. “Mild and lovely creature,” said he, “your
prayer is answered: the wish that you have so long nursed in
your suppressed bosom, and which could not, ere this, be
fulfilled, is now granted you.” - -
Scarcely had he spoken these words, when he touched the
swan with his lyre, and woke upon it the song of those who
are immortal! With ecstacy did the tones thrill through the
bosom of the bird of Apollo; enraptured and inspired did he
breathe upon the strings to the God of Beauty; gratefully glad
he sang of the beautiful sun, of the rosy and radiant sea, and
of his own life of blessed innocence. Lovely as his own form
was the harmonious song. While breathing sweet tones, that
died softly away upon the water, the swan moved on, drawing
long waves at each gentle stroke, until he found himself
again — in Elysium, at the foot of Apollo, in his true, celestial
beauty.
The power of song, which in life had been denied him,
became his joy in dying; in the rapture of which he was softly
taken up; for he had heard the notes of those that are immor-
tal, and had seen the face of a god! Gratefully he bent at the
feet of Apollo, and heard his divine songs. Just at that


92 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
moment came his true-hearted companion, who, in sweet
tones, had mourned herself after him through death. The
goddess of innocence received both as her favorites; and
made them the match-pair to draw her little shell-wagon,
when she goes forth in joyful pastime upon the sea of
youth ! -
Be patient, quiet, hoping heart! What is denied you in life,
because you could not endure it, will be granted you in the
moment of death.
The swam has some very instructive habits—habits very sug-
gestive, and worthy of all imitation. We will mention several.
The swans are very careful of their cygnets during their
early life; keeping them under their immediate care until the
end of the first winter. In the spring, however, they soon begin
to slight them, thus intimating to them that they are now old
enough to feel the responsibilities of life, and to take care of
themselves; “and if they will not take the hint, they fairly
drive them away, and compel them to seek their own food,
which consists of the tender parts of aquatic plants and roots,
water insects, and now and then – but only now and then–
small fishes.” This habit of the swan may teach parents, that
it is one part of their duty to teach their children to draw upon
their own resources, when once they are old enough so to do.
It may also teach children not to make themselves, by idleness
or profligacy, a burden to their parents, when they are once
old enough to relieve others from the care of providing for their
wants. O idle, worthless child, that art suffering thine own
strength to waste, while thou art consuming the substance
of thy parents, go to the swans, consider their ways, and
shame thyself into the paths of wisdom. -



























T H E S W A N. 93
As swans build their nests along rivers, they are, of course,
in danger of having their eggs chilled by the rising water,
and even of seeing their nests swept entirely away. To
prevent such disaster, a kind Providence has bestowed upon
them a wonderful instinctive fore-knowledge, which warns
them of the coming rise in the water, by which they are led,
before the flood comes on, to raise their nests, so as to avert the
threatened evil. Broderip quotes from Mr. Yarrell an account
of these wonderful preparations, clearly showing, that to the
incubating swan,
“Coming events cast their shadows before.”
“The scene of this true tale was a small stream at Bishop,
Stortford. A female swan had seen some eighteen summers,
had reared many broods, and was become familiar to the
neighbors, who valued her highly. Once, while she was sitting
on four or five eggs, she was observed to be very busy, collect-
ing weeds, grasses, and other materials to raise her nest. A
farming-man was ordered to take down half a load of haulm,
with which she most industriously raised her nest and eggs two
feet and a half: that very night there came down a tremendous
fall of rain, which flooded all the malt-shops, and did great
damage. Man made no preparation, the bird did. Instinct
prevailed over reason: her eggs were above, and only just
above, the water "
Spirit of Purity — make my spirit pure as the white
bosom of the swan. Spirit of Grace — make me graceful in
mind, heart, and life, like its movements. Spirit of Comfort
– grant me, like the swan, to breathe most sweetly when
























dying.
T H E BIRDs of T.III BIBLE.
-
White as the stainless bosom of the swan,
Are the robes celestial which the sainted wear;
Calm as the peaceful surface of the waveless lake,
Where the sailing swans their evening pastime take,
Are the spirits of the pure that rest forever there.
Like a soft song, that in its own blest tones expires,
The peaceful swan sings as it soars and dies:
So sweetly pass the happy saints from earth away,
So die they, breathing forth a swan-like farewell lay
To those they leave behind, as up to Heaven they rise.









Újt (Dºttir.
“Didst thou the ostrich clothe with plumes so fair?
Which, nor with falcon's nor with stork's compare;
Who heedless roaming, or by fear subdued, - |
Feels not a parent's fond solicitude. ||
While far she flies, her scattered eggs are found -
Without an owner on the sandy ground;
Cast out at fortune, they at mercy lie, -
And borrow life from an indulgent sky. - |
Unmindful she that some unhappy tread -
May crush her young in their neglected bed;
As far she wanders for her daily food, -
Or on the way adopts some casual brood,
And these without discrimination share
Offered attendance, not instinctive care.
Yet when her sudden enemy she sees,
- Uprising, with the favorite gale, she flees,
And skims along the plain with rapid speed,
And scorns alike the hunter and his steed.”
-
THE Ostrich is several times alluded to in our English trans-
lation of the Bible; and, it is contended by many sound critics,
that in several other places where we read owl in the English
translation, it should be ostrich. The word which is translated

(95)
96 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
ostrich is derived from a verb which signifies, to cry out with a
loud and fearful noise; and, in this respect, applies as well to
the habits of the owl as to those of the ostrich.
The Greeks called it “the camel-bird;" a name which it still
bears in the East, and which it received from its resemblance in
shape, and in some other respects, to the camel. It is said that,
at a distance, it looks very much like this animal of the desert.
The Arabs call the ostrich “the Father of the Desert;" and
the ancient Hebrews “the Daughter of the Desert.” The
ostrich is among birds what the elephant is among four-footed
animals. Though a fowl, it seems to come nearest of all fowls
to the quadruped. -
We have an excellent description of this remarkable bird by
Dr. Harris, in his Natural History of the Bible. “The ostrich
is generally thought to be the largest, at least it is one of the
tallest birds in the world; being full seven, and sometimes eight
feet in height, from the head to the top of the ground, and about
four from the back to the ground. When the neck is stretched
out in a right line, it measures six feet from the head to the
rump, and the tail about a foot more. One of the wings is
a foot and a half long without the feathers, and with the
feathers three feet. The plumage is generally black and white,
though it is said to be sometimes grey. The largest feathers,
which are at the extremities of the wings and tail, are usu
white; and the small feathers on the back and body are a
mixture of black and white. This fowl has no feathers on the
sides of its thighs, nor under its wings. That half of the neck
which is next to the body is covered with smaller feathers than
those on the body and back, and like them, are a mixture of
white and black. These feathers are peculiar to the ostrich.
Other birds have several sorts; some of which are soft and


T H E O STRIC H. 97.
downy, and others hard and strong; but almost all the feathers
of an ostrich are as soft as down, and utterly unfit to serve for
flying, or to defend it against external injury. The webs on
the feathers of other birds are broader on one side than on
the other, but in those of the ostrich the shaft is exactly in the
middle. As the wings are not large enough in proportion to
the body, to raise it from the ground, they serve as sails or oars
to cut through or impel the air, and add great swiftness to their
feet, which are shodden with a horny substance, enabling them
to tread firmly, and to run a great while without hurting them-
selves. The head and the upper part of the neck of this animal
are covered with very fine white shining hairs; with small
tufts in some places, consisting of about ten or twelve hairs,
which grow from a single shaft, about the thickness of a pin.
The wings are furnished with a kind of spur, resembling the
quill of a porcupine: this is of a horny substance, hollow, and
about an inch long. There are two of these on each wing, the
largest of which is at the extremity of the bone of the wing.
and the other about a foot lower. The neck appears propor-
tionably more slender than that of other birds, from its not
being covered all over with feathers. The bill is short, and
shaped somewhat like that of the duck. The external form of
the eye resembles that of a man, the upper eyelid being fur-
mished with eye-lashes which are longer than those on the lid
below. The tongue is very short and small. The thighs, which
are large and plump, are covered with a flesh-colored skin.
which appears greatly wrinkled. Some of them have a few
scattered hairs on their thighs, and others are entirely without.
The legs are covered with scales; and the ends of the feet are
cloven, having two very large toes on each, which are also
covered with scales. The toes are of unequal sizes; that on


7 I
98 T H E B I R D S OF T H E BIBLE.
the inside is the largest, and is about seven inches long,
including the claw, which is three-quarters of an inch in length,
and nearly the same in breadth. The other two have no claws,
and do not exceed four inches in length.”
The Ostrich has, from very early ages, been known as a
native of the deserts of Africa and Arabia. Herodotus, the
most ancient of all profane historians, mentions it; and, being
so large and peculiar a bird, it is referred to frequently by the
earliest writers who treated on natural history. There are vast
numbers in southern Africa, where they frequently make depre-
dations upon the fields of the farmers, destroying the entire
crop so effectually, as not to leave even a single ear behind; and
so vigilant and swift are they, that there is no defence against
their incursions.
It is a singular fact, that the drearier and more barren any
desert is, the more does the ostrich love it as its home. Being
shy and timorous, the farther it can retire from the Arabian
husbandmen and shepherds, into the lonely desolations of the
Sahara, the more does it feel in its own free element. Nor has
it any difficulty in subsisting in regions where, to our eyes, there
seems to be nothing to sustain even a bird. It is exceedingly
voracious, filthy, and coarse in its diet; hesitating not to swallow
down almost any thing it meets, such as pieces of rags, leather,
hair, wood, stone, or metals. It greedily snatches up the
coarsest grass, snails, bugs, lizards, toads, and serpents. It is
also fond of dates, when it meets with them on the borders of
the desert. The Arabian zoologists say that it never drinks
water.
Barrow, in his Travels in Southern Africa, says, “Among the
very few poligamous birds that are found in a state of nature,
the ostrich is one. The male, distinguished by its glossy black

T H E O S T R D C H. 99
feathers from the dusky grey female, is generally seen with two
or three, and frequently as many as five, of the latter. These
females lay their eggs in one nest, to the number of ten or
twelve each, which they hatch all together, the male taking his
turn of sitting on them among the rest.” The male ostrich
deports himself with much tenderness towards his conjugal
mates. It has been said that domesticated ostriches always
grieve themselves to death when their mates die, or are taken
away from them.
While the females in the day-time are hatching by turns, the
male never goes away from the nest, but sits as watch upon the
hill of sand at the edge of which the nest is located, until
evening, when he occupies the nest for the night. So faithfully
does he watch, that even his own hunger does not take him
away from his post; and hence he, during this period, becomes
extremely poor and feeble. It is from this habit of peculiar
watchfulness, which characterizes this bird, that the custom has
come to prevail among the Copts, of hanging up in their
churches strings of ostrich eggs, by the sight of which the
faithful are to be reminded of the duty of watchfulness in
spiritual things. We find, too, that in the hieroglyphic
language of the Egyptians the ostrich was the symbol of
watchfulness. -
The eggs of the ostrich are astonishingly large; some of them
being more than five inches in diameter, and weighing five
pounds. The shells of the eggs are extremely hard and strong;
and they are often used as drinking-cups among the Arabs.
Each bird lays from ten to twelve eggs; and as there are often
four and five attached to each nest, there are sometimes from
fifty to sixty of these vast eggs found in a single nest.
We have already remarked that the name of the ostrich


100 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
designates it as a bird which makes a loud, fearful, and lament-
able noise. Travellers in the orient bear abundant testimony
to this habit of the ostrich. Dr. Shaw, who was an ear-witness,
says: “During the lonesome part of the night, they often make
very doleful and hideous noises; which would sometimes be like
the roaring of a lion, at other times it would bear a nearer re-
semblance to the hoarser voice of other quadrupeds, particularly
the bull and the ox. I have often heard them groan as if they
were in the greatest agonies.” These hideous and almost un-
earthly noises produce a strange feeling in the hearts of wan-
derers in the desert. “How gloomy it is then,” says one, “and
even terrible to travellers who penetrate, with timorous appre-
hensions, into the immensity of these deserts, where every
living being, man not excepted, is an object of dread and
danger"
The Ostrich loves the desert deeps,
So lone, so drear, and dry;
Where rolls the wind its drifting heaps
Of sand against the sky.
In regions such as these, past ages did locate,
The awful homes of spirits reprobate
And that fearful note,
From the ghostly throat
Of this desert bird, –
As it doth rebound,
With terrific sound,
O'er the desert ground,
And at night is heard, –
Seems like the wail of a spirit lost!
It is on account of this habit of the ostrica, together with its
love for deserts and desolation, that some commentators have

T H E O S T RIC H. 101
-
supposed, that in a number of places where our translation
reads owl, the ostrich is intended by the original. It is a matter
of little practical importance in the interpretation of these pas-
sages, since both these birds are similar in their habits in this
respect.*
Notwithstanding the natural shyness of this bird, and the
extraordinary power of speed with which the Creator has
endowed it, the Arabian hunters nevertheless manage to take
them. The mode of catching ostriches is very interesting, and
illustrates, in a striking manner, the superiority of human
wisdom over the most acute instinctive sagacity, and the natu-
ral advantages of the lower orders. The ostrich chase, though
very laborious, gives great delight to the practised hunter. The
Arabians train their best and fleetest horses for this purpose.
“As soon as the hunter comes within sight of his prey, he puts
his horse to a gentle gallop, so as to keep the ostrich still in
sight; yet not so as to terrify him from the plain into the
mountains. Upon observing himself, therefore, pursued at a
distance, the bird begins to run at first, but gently, either in-
sensible of its danger, or sure of escaping. In this situation he
somewhat resembles a man at full speed; his wings, like two
arms, keep working with a motion correspondent to that of his
legs; and his speed would very soon snatch him from view of
his pursuers, but, unfortunately for the silly creature, instead
of going off in a direct line, he keeps his course in circles; while
the hunters still make a small course within, relieve each other,
meet him at unexpected turns, and keep him thus still em-
ployed, still followed, for two or three days together. At last,
spent with fatigue and famine, and finding all power of escape
impossible, he endeavors to hide himself from those enemies he


I 2 -
102 THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
cannot avoid, and covers his head in the sand, or the first
thicket he meets. Sometimes, however, he attempts to face
his pursuers; and though in general the most gentle animal in
mature, when driven to desperation, he defends himself with his
beak, his wings, and his feet. Such is the force of his motion,
that a man would be utterly unable to withstand him in the
shock.”
We are told that, in quite ancient times, savages captured the
ostrich by a very singular device. They would disguise them-
selves in the skin of an ostrich, and, by putting one of their
arms through the neck, would imitate and counterfeit all its
motions. In this way they were able to approach them, and
take them with perfect ease. It is known that the Indians
of America take the roebuck by the same stratagem.
Various considerations induce the Arabs to hunt the ostrich.
Although it is ranked in Scripture among the birds unclean, yet
it has been extensively used as food. Ancient writers inform
us that whole nations have acquired the name of Struthiophagi,
ostrich-eaters, from their fondness for the flesh of this bird. It
was eaten also among the Romans. It is said that the Emperor
Heliogabalus, at one feast, had the brains of six hundred
ostriches served up. Even at this day they are used as food
among the savages of Africa. In southern Africa they breed
them tame, in order to have the young ones to eat, which are
regarded as a great delicacy.
The skin of the ostrich is very thick and strong, and is
extensively used as leather among the Arabs. It is also some-
times made into a kind of vest, which is used, in hunting and
in war, as cuirass and buckler.
This bird, on account of its great size and strength, has been
used to carry men, and other burdens, upon its back, like a

T H E O STRIC II. 103
horse or camel. “The tyrant Firmius, who reigned in Egypt
about the end of the third century, was frequently carried by
large ostriches. Moore, an English traveller, relates that he
had seen, at Joar, in Africa, a man travelling on an ostrich; and
Willisnieri speaks of a young man who exhibited himself upon
one of these birds at Venice. M. Adanson saw, at the factory
at Podor, two ostriches, which were yet young, of which the
stronger went at a pace which would have distanced the fleetest
English race-horse, with two negroes on its back.” Goldsmith
thinks it a matter worthy of inquiry, how far this swiftest of
animals may be made useful to man, even in a polished state;
and suggests that the riding of ostriches may yet become the
favorite mode of travelling. Alas! how has the invention of
rail-roads dissipated this fond dream of the poetical naturalist!
Aside from all these different uses to which the ostrich may
be put, the chief inducement to its pursuit is its beautiful
plumage. The long feathers which compose the wings and tail
are very beautiful and valuable, and afford the greatest tempta-
tion to the destruction of this harmless bird of the desert. The
ancients, according to Pliny, placed those downy plumes as
ornaments in their helmets. “Conos bellicos geleasque ador-
mantes pennas.” The ladies in the East, as also in our own
country, use them as an ornament for the head-dress. In Eng-
land they are used to decorate hearses, and even the hats of
gentlemen. -
We have, in the book of Job, a very graphic poetical
description of the Ostrich, in which a number of its peculiari-
ties are alluded to.
* Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks?
Or wings and feathers unto the ostrich
Which leaveth her eggs in the earth,


104 T H E B I R D S OF THE BIBLE.
-
And warmeth them in the dust,
And forgetteth that the foot may crush them,
Or that the wild beast may break them?
She is hardened against her young ones,
As though they were not hers:
Her labor is in vain without fear;
Because God hath deprived her of wisdom,
Neither hath he imparted to her understanding.
What time she lifteth up herself on high,
She scorneth the horse and his rider.”
We have seen that this bird is remarkable for the beauty of
its plumage. God, in order to confound the pride and power
of vain man, asks him whether he thus clothed the ostrich
with such goodly “wings and feathers?” It is not only noted
for the strength of its wings, but also for the remarkable
manner in which it uses them. Though its body is too heavy
to be raised by its wings into the air, and it is not, therefore,
able to fly like other birds; yet it uses them, when it runs, as
sails and oars, by elevating them gently, and thus waſting itself
away over the desert as on the wings of the wind, while the
tip of its toes but scarcely touches the earth. These wings being
its pride and strength in flight, it seems to feel their importance
when at rest. Dr. Shaw alludes to this. “When I was abroad,
I had several opportunities of amusing myself with the actions
and behaviour of the ostrich. It was very diverting to observe
with what dexterity and equipoise of body it would play and
frisk about on all occasions. In the heat of the day, particularly,
it would strut along the sunny side of the house with great
majesty. It would be perpetually fanning and priding itself
with its quivering expanded wings, and seem at every turn to
admire and be in love with its own shadow. Even at other
times, when walking about, or resting itself on the ground, the


T II E O STRIC H. 105
wings would continue these fanning and vibrating motions, as
if they were designed to mitigate and assuage that extraordinary
heat where with their bodies seem to be naturally affected.”
“Which leaveth her eggs in the earth,
And warmeth them in the dust,
And forgetteth that the foot may crush them,
Or that the wild beast may break them.” -
The ostrich builds her nest on the earth, generally at the foot
of a hill of sand, in the most barren and solitary recesses of the
desert.
“And warmeth them in the dust.”
It is not here intended that the ostrich does not sit on its eggs
at all, but leaves them over to the warm sun on the sand; for
it is known that this bird sits upon its eggs as all other birds
do. The passage is explained by the fact, that they very often
withdraw from their eggs in the middle of the day, and leave
them to the powerful warmth of the sun, returning to it again
toward evening. -
This fact is referred to by the poet Wordsworth, in his
“Song of the Wandering Jew.”
“The fleet ostrich, till day closes,
Vagrant over desert sands,
Brooding on her eggs reposes,
When chill night that care demands.”
The poet puts into the mouth of the ostrich a very beautiful
and forcible defence of her conduct in leaving her nest to the
tender mercies of the warm sun. -
“Hast thou expelled the mother from thy breast,
And to the desert's mercies left thy nest?
—Ah! no; the mother in me knows her part;
Yon glorious sun is warmer than my heart;
And when to life he brings my hungry brood,
He spreads for them the wilderness with food.”


106 T H E B I R D S OF THE BIBLE.
-
Though they are much attached to their brood, yet there is this
singularity about them, that when they are, by some very trivial
means, disturbed, and for once driven away from their nest, they
never return to it again. Thus it careth not that its eggs lie
exposed; hence the Arabs frequently find nests full of eggs thus
forsaken; and still oftener, no doubt, they are found by wild
beasts, by which they are destroyed.
“And forgetteth that the foot may crush them,
Or that the wild beast may break them.”
It is said that ostriches thus driven away from their own nest,
will sit upon other eggs, if they accidentally come across them;
—so easily does it forget its own eggs, and lose all interest in their
fate It is said that this singular insensibility of our bird is
frequently alluded to by Arabian poets, with whom also it is
favorite material for constructing similes. We quote the follow-
ing specimen from Robinson's Calmet.
“There are who, deaf to nature's cries,
On stranger tribes bestow their food:
So her own eggs the ostrich flies,
And, senseless, rears another's brood.”
This same cruel propensity not to return again to its nest
when disturbed, it manifests as well after its young are hatched,
as when they are yet in the shell. “The Arabs,” says Dr.
Shaw, “often meet with the little ones, no bigger than well-
grown pullets, half-starved, straggling and moaning about like
so many distressed orphans for their mother.” Thus
“She is hardened against her young ones,
As though they were not hers.”
Thus, though they endured the toil of breeding them, they now
seem at once to lose all care and concern for them.


T H E O S T R T C H. 107
** Her labor is in vain without fear.”
That is, without either regarding the loss of her own pains in
the past, or having any fear or concern as to what may be their
own fate in the future. An old poet designates this bird by this
cruel habit :
“They too that range the thirstie wilds emong,
The Ostryches, unthoughtful of their yonge.”
To this cruelty Jeremiah also refers. The inheritance of
Zion was surrendered into the hands of strangers, and left
without a sigh to its own fate, just as the ostrich yields, with
passive cruelty, her eggs and her young. The prophet com-
plains of this.
“The daughter of my people is become cruel,
Like the ostriches in the wilderness.”
This course of conduct may itself be regarded as sufficient to
entitle the ostrich to the epithet “foolish.” The sentence which
follows the last seems to connect her folly with this course of
conduct.
“Because God hath deprived her of wisdom,
Neither hath he imparted to her understanding.”
There are many things which designate the ostrich as an igno-
rant bird. Its moving in a circle, when it is pursued, until it
is tired out, instead of going in a direct course—its running its
head into the sand, or into a thicket, when it is closely pursued,
and imagining that safety consists in not seeing danger! — its
eating almost every thing that comes in its way, and injuring
itself by taking metals, stones, wood, and other indigestible
things into its stomach – all these show it to be in a great
degree destitute of instinctive sagacity and natural skill.



108 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
For nothing, however, is the ostrich more remarkable than
for the wonderful speed of which it is capable. This is beauti-
fully expressed in the sacred poem:
“What time she lifteth up herself on high,
She scorneth the horse and his rider.”
Xenophon, in his Anabasis, speaks of the speed of which the
ostrich is capable. This is abundantly confirmed by others.
“She sets off,” says a traveller, “at a hard gallop; but, after
being excited a little, she expands her wings, as if to catch the
wind, and abandons herself to a speed so great, that she seems
not to touch the ground. I am persuaded she would leave far
behind the swiftest English courser.” It is said to be a most
beautiful and interesting sight to behold one of these vast birds,
half on foot and half on wing, wafting itself faster than the
wind over the desert.
How astonishing are the displays of divine power, wisdom,
and love in the creation of this wonderful being of the desert
Even the dreariest solitudes of the earth must have some living
monuments to the divine honor. Even hither should any one
stray – to hide himself from the many challenges which God
makes upon the love and reverence of men, through his word
and works even here would he be confronted by this bright-
plumed creation of divine power and skill, and be startled and
confounded by the searching voice of Jehovah, as though he
called out of the whirlwind of sand that rolls over the
desert,
“Gavest thou wings and feathers to the ostrich *




Ú ºr "truth.
“The Peacoke farre surpasseth all the rest in this kind,
as well for beautie, as also for the wit and understanding
that he hath; but principally for the pride and glorie hee
taketh in himselfe. For perceiving at any time that he is
praised and well liked, he spreadeth his taile round, show-
ing and setting out his colors to the most, whiche shine
againe like precious stones.”
“The peacocke with his angel fethers bright.”
IT would be in vain to attempt, with either pen or pencil, to
give an adequate delineation of the dazzling beauties of this
most interesting specimen of the feathered creation. Of them
it may be said, as the Saviour said of the lilies, even Solomon
in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these The nice
curves of its neck, and the gentle slopes of its body, even inde-
pendently of the varied colors of its plumage, give, especially
to the male, an almost inimitable gracefulness. Its length, in-
cluding its train, gives it an air of gentleness for which we seek
in vain in other birds. When it moves in state, it reminds one
of a Queen, conscious of dignity, and feeling itself to be the
admiration of all beholders.
Its chief beauty, however, is found in its outward decorations
K (109)



110 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
and plumage. On the top of its head there is a tuft of twenty-
four feathers standing erect, with webs at the end of the most
exquisite green, mixed with gold, forming a beautiful crown. Its
head, neck, and breast are a deep blue, slightly glossed with gold.
But who can describe the scene of beauty when it erects its
train in the shape of a fan or wheel, from six to eight feet in
diameter, with graceful circular rows of eyes enamelled with
the most brilliant colors, blended in a way which no art can
imitate It is in this feat that the peacock does full justice to
its beauty. The ancients say, that when Mercury slew the
Argus, which had a hundred eyes, Juno, who was the guardian
of the peacock, took these eyes, and with them adorned the
train of this fowl. Besides the glory of his train, “all his move-
ments are full of dignity; his head and neck bend nobly back;
his pace is slow and solemn, and he frequently turns slowly and
gracefully round, as if to catch the sunbeams in every direc-
tion, and produce new colors of inconceivable richness and
beauty.”
“The peacock view, still exquisitely fair,
When clouds forsake, and when invest the air;
His gems now brightened by a moon-tide ray;
He proudly waves his feathers to the day.
A strut, majestically slow, assumes,
And glories in the beauty of his plumes.”
He is very careful of his beauty, and hence selects a place to
rest at night, where his train may hang unmolested and free,
and always seeks the open green-sward, in the brilliant sun, as
the most favorable spot on which to display his glowing, fan-like
beauties.
The peacock is a native of the East Indies, where it runs wild
in the forests, especially in the islands of Java and Ceylon. It
-

- T H E P E A C O C K. - 111
is spoken of by some of the ancients as the bird of Media and
Persia; though they are not all agreed as to its native country.
Aristophanes calls it the bird of Persia; Suidas, the bird of
Media; and Clemens Paedagogus, the bird of India. Diodorus
says that Babylonia produces a very great number of peacocks.
It was, no doubt, introduced into these countries from India at
first; and thence into Judea, Greece, and Egypt. It has
been ascertained, in more modern times, that peacocks are very
abundant north of the gulf of Siam. “In the kingdom of
Cambaya,” says a traveller, “near the city of Baroch, whole
flocks of them are seen in the fields. They are very shy, how-
ever, and it is impossible to come near them. They run off
swifter than the partridge, and hide themselves in the thickets,
where it is impossible to find them. They perch by night upon
trees; and the fowler often approaches them at that season with
a kind of banner, on which a peacock is painted to the life on
either side. A lighted torch is fixed on the top of this decoy;
and the peacock, when disturbed, flies to what it takes for
another, and is thus caught in a noose, prepared for that pur-
ose.”
The peacock is mentioned as early as 1520 before Christ, in
the Book of Job, when God challenges the Patriarch thus:
“Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacock?”
If, according to Diodorus, Babylonia produced these birds, they
may easily have been known in Ur of the Chaldees; and it
is not necessary, therefore, to argue, as some have done, that
the passage in Job must refer to some other bird, because they
were not known in Syria till long afterwards. The name which
is given to it in the Hebrew Bible, Thochijim, is the same as is
still used to designate it by the inhabitants of Malabar.



112 - T H E BIRDS OF T H E B {BL. E.
- They were first brought into the Holy Land by King Solo-
mon about the year, before Christ, 992. “For the King had at
sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram; once in three
years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold and silver,
ivory, apes, and peacocks.” As Solomon carried on commerce
with distant countries on the sea, it was more natural and easy
for him to find these birds in some islands of India, or even in
Media and Persia, than in Babylonia.
Various reasons have been assigned for Solomon's importing
these fowls into his country. It might have been on account
of their beauty; but, as the uncomely ape is mentioned as
having been imported with the peacock, and as Solomon's taste
for natural history is distinctly mentioned in the Bible, it seems
rather probable that it was to please his taste in this particular,
that he encouraged his mariners to seek out, and bring with
them, from distant lands, all varieties of rare specimens in
natural history. The arrival of so princely and beautiful a bird
must have given great pleasure to this royal lover of the beau-
tiful and curious in natural science. -
These birds were held in high honor among the ancient
Greeks and Romans. Peacocks were sacred to Juno, the wife
of Jupiter, and the Queen of Heaven. This honored place was
assigned them, because by their cry they gave indications of a
change of weather, especially of the approach of rain, and thus
were supposed to stand in intimate connection with the councils
of heaven. This habit of the peacock is well known to moderns,
and is beautifully alluded to by Drayton, in his poem on “Noah's
Flood.” -
“The strutting peacock yawling 'gainst the rain,
Flutters into the ark, by his shrill cry
Telling the rest the tempest to be migh.”






























T H E P E A C O C K. 113
The peacock is still held sacred to the god Scandan in the
East.
In Lesser Asia and Greece they were highly esteemed by the
rich, who purchased them at enormous prices. “We learn from
Plutarch,” says Paxton, “that in the age of Pericles, a person
at Athens made a great fortune by raising these birds, and
showing them to the public, at a certain price, every new moon;
and to this exhibition the curious Greeks crowded from the re-
motest parts of the country.” The keeper of these birds, the
same author informs us, sold a male and female for a thousand
drachms, about thirty-six pounds of English money. “In the
time of Varro, even their eggs were sold for five denarii, or more
than three shillings a-piece; and the birds themselves at about
two pounds. The same writer mentions that one man received
a yearly revenue of more than sixty thousand pieces of silver,
which amounts to four hundred and sixty-eight pounds, fifteen
shillings sterling, from the sale of peacocks.
The value they placed upon these birds caused them sacredly
to guard their lives. Alexander, when he met with peacocks
on the banks of the Indus, was so struck with astonishment
and admiration of their beauty, that he gave orders that every
person who killed one of them should be severely punished.
At Rome, when Hortensius first killed one for supper, he was
brought to trial for the offence, and condemned to pay a fine.
It is said, also, that in the days of chivalry they were in such
xx
great repute that, like the “lady love” of the knights, their
safety was secured by the knightly oath.
It is called the bird of chivalry, of which also it is a very
apt representative; not only because of the pomp which it
assumes in the day of its glory, when it flourishes a beautiful
train, but also on account of its ludicrous pretensions to display
S R 2
114 T H E BIRDS OF T H E BIBLE.
-
when it has lost its feathers—strutting still, and going through
the motions, when there is nothing remaining to sustain the
dignity of the performance, exhibiting thus a most amusing
combination of the sublime and the ridiculous.
“See the proud bird of chivalry living its day,
Though the source of its greatness hath faded away.”
A most apt illustration, also, is the peacock, in this predicament,
of what is called in fashionable circles, “keeping up appear-
ances !” -
These princely fowls, though they have been carried into
almost all lands, are still particularly numerous in the East. “It
gives a kind of enchantment,” says a certain traveller, “to a
morning scene, to see flocks of them together, spreading their
beautiful plumage in the rays of the sun. They proudly stalk
along, and then run with great speed, particularly if they get
sight of a serpent; and the reptile must wind along in his best
style, or he will soon become the prey of the lordly bird.”
The principal interest that attaches to these birds seems to
be their beauty, and it is only this that is referred to in the
Scriptures. In other respects they not only present little that is
attractive, but some things that are repulsive, to which faithful-
ness to our sketch compels us also to allude. The common people
of Italy, according to Goldsmith, say of it that “it has the
plumage of an angel, the voice of a devil, and the guts of a
thief!" Another writer has said, that it has “the head of a
serpent, the train of an angel, and the voice of a devil.” Alas!
for our beautiful bird ' Yet so it is. Its voice has no modula-
tions, but only a monotonous scream, in which it indulges most
lustily when there is about to be a change of weather. It
has a spirit of insatiable gluttony, and, as a consequence, of


T H E P E A C O C R. 115
ruthless depredation. “In the indulgence of these capricious
pursuits, walls cannot confine it; it strips the tops of houses of
tiles or thatch, it lays waste the labors of the gardener, roots up
his choicest seeds, and nips his favorite flowers in the bud.”
Neither is it of much use as an article of food. Its flesh is
neither good tasted nor healthful. Though the ancients talk
of it as the first of viands; yet it is evident that it was so much
esteemed, not for its agreeableness, but rather because it was
dear and rare, which caused it to be found only at royal ban-
quets. This is not the only case in which aristocracy, in gilded
misery, feigns to enjoy what others are not able to have, just
because it is an exclusive possession. Hence we find that, in
later times, the dish, though it continued to appear at the ban-
quets of the great, was only there to be seen, and not to be
eaten. It became customary, in preparing it for the table, care-
fully to strip off its skin, then to fill the body with the rarest
spices, covering it again with its former skin, with all its plu-
mage in full display. This was intended, of course, not for
eating, but only for display. Goldsmith tells us that the
Romans, to give a higher zest to their entertainments, particu-
larly at weddings, filled the bird's beak and throat with cotton
and camphor, which they set on fire, to amuse and delight the
company in exhibiting his train.
The ancients noticed the fact, that when he discovers that he
is observed by admiring spectators, he manifests increased pomp,
and aims at still greater display. This same disposition and
love of vanity still characterizes him. An ancient writer
reproves this vanity by observing, that these feathers in which
he prides himself so much, will soon be used as fly-brushes.
“Thus, that which was once the proud train of this beautiful
bird, is now used to drive from our tables the filthy flies!"


116 T H E B { R D S OF THE BIBLE.
The peacock is not the only being that prides itself more in
its outward plumage than in its inherent excellencies, and that
adds mischief and worthlessness to beauty It is not uncommon
to find, even among rational beings, an empty mind beneath the
most dazzling decorations; and a heart dead to all virtue, and
destitute of all holy affections, covered with richest trappings,
and sparkling with gems and gold. There are those who move
in society, in outward show, like the gilded butterflies of a
summer's day, till a night more fearful than that which causes
insects to retire, brings upon them
“Burning instead of beauty.”
It is said that when this bird is in the midst of the proud
enjoyment of displaying its train, if it accidentally sees its feet,
it drops its feathers. Its feet are not so beautiful as its feathers!
A fact this, from which the votaries of pride and fashion may
take a truthful suggestion. We will not apply the wisdom of
the lesson, but prefer that all concerned should do it, each one
quietly, and by private meditation. It may be remarked, how-
ever, that an humble casting of the eyes to the earth might be
a profitable exercise to such as are of a lofty countenance,
“And walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes,
Walking and mincing as they go,
And making a tinkling with their feet.”
We know that there is not always really pride where there is
the appearance of it. A person's dress, and even his general
deportment and bearing, may indicate to those that look on the
existence of vanity, when it may, after all, be but habit, and
the heart be free from pride. Let us give our fowl the advan-
tage of this consideration. The poet has made for it perhaps
the best apology which it is possible to make:


T H E P E A C O C K. 117
“Peacock, of idle beauty why so vain?
–And art thou humble, who hast no fine train 7
It is not vanity, but Nature's part,
To show, by me, the cunning of her art?”
Still, why is no such apology necessary in the case of other
birds– the dove, for instance? The appearance of pride is
here, and this is an appearance of evil which must be reproved.
So we say still, poor vain fowl I Like all things of pride, weak
in all its beauty In its zeal for display, and in its love of admi-
ration, it forgets the homeliness of its uncomely parts. More-
over, in the very act of indulging its pride, it reveals, more than
at any other time, the ugliness of its feet! When its train is
modestly down, then are its feet most covered Humility not
only hides, but actually banishes, a thousand infirmities; while
a haughty spirit leads its possessor to expose every personal
defect; and in its silly attempt to draw upon itself admiration,
it only inspires pity and disgust.
“Of all the causes, which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is Pride; the never-failing vice of fools.
For, as in bodies, thus in souls, we find,
What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind.
Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.”
Humility is much commended in the Scriptures. The only
way to true greatness is the path of the humble; for only those
who humble themselves shall be exalted. It has been well
- said, that the birds which fly highest build on the ground their
lowly nest, and in an humble nest they nourish those young
who shall one day soar like themselves. The largest trees grow


118 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
in the lowest valleys; while upon eminences they are scrubby
- and small. Fruit trees that never bear have straight, erect
branches, extending proudly upward; but those which are
fruitful do bend their branches humbly toward the earth. Mark
that man whose heart and features are wont to uplift themselves
- he is proud and empty. Mark that one who, like the limbs
- - of a laden fruit tree doth bend toward the earth—he is humble,
and rich in good fruits. Moreover, he that looks to his feet will
walk safest. Blessed are they who imitate Him who was meek
and lowly in heart. How great was He, and yet how humble
His birth |
“Where the meekness of self-knowledge veileth the front of self-respect,
There look thou for the man, whom none can know but they will honor.
Humility is the softening shadow before the stature of excellence,
And lieth lowly on the ground, beloved and lovely as the violet.
As when a blind man is nigh unto a rose, its sweetness is the herald of
- - its beauty,
- So when thou savourest humility, be sure thou art nigh unto merit.”
-





Újt }\ºlitiºn.
“Nature's prime favorites are these Pelicans;
High fed, long lived, and sociable and free,
They ranged in wedded pairs, or martial bands,
For play or slaughter. Oft have I beheld
A little army take the watery field,
With out-stretched pinions form a spacious ring,
Then pressing to the centre, through the waves,
Inclose thick shoals within their narrowing toils,
Till multitudes entangled fell a prey:
Or when the flying-fish, in sudden clouds,
Burst from the sea, and fluttered through the air,
These giant fowlers snapped them, like musketoes
By swallows hunted through the summer sky.
THIs bird of the Bible is a native of Africa; though it was
also known anciently in Asia. Late travellers have seen it upon
the Lakes of Gennesaret and Merom, and in the rocky cliffs of
Accho, in Galilee. It is also known in America; and anciently
it was found in Europe, especially in Russia, but is said to exist
no more in that part of the world.
Goldsmith gives us a very minute and satisfactory description
of this interesting fowl. “The Pelican of Africa is much
(119)
120 T H E BIRDS OF T H E BIBLE.
larger in the body than a swan, and somewhat of the same shape
and color. Its four toes are all webbed together, and its neck,
in some measure, resembles that of a swan; but that singularity
in which it differs from all other birds, is in the bill and the
great pouch underneath, which are wonderful, and demand a
distinct description. This enormous bill is fifteen inches from
the point to the opening of the mouth, which is a good way
back, behind the eyes. At the base, the bill is somewhat
greenish, but varies towards the end, being of a reddish blue.
It is very thick in the beginning, but tapers off toward the end,
where it hooks downwards. The under chap is still more extra-
ordinary; for to the lower edges of it hangs a bag, reaching
the whole length of the bill to the neck, which is said to be ca-
pable of containing fifteen quarts of water. This bag the bird
has a power of wrinkling up into the hollow of the under chap;
but by opening the bill, and putting one's hand down into the
bag, it may be distended at pleasure. The skin of which it is
formed will then be seen of a bluish ash-color, with many fibres
and veins running over its surface. It is not covered with
feathers, but a short downy substance as smooth and as soft as
satin, and is attached all along the under edges of the chap, to
be fixed backward to the neck of the bird by proper ligaments,
and reaches near half-way down. When this bag is empty, it
is not seen; but when the bird has fished with success, it is then
incredible to what an extent it is often seen dilated. For the
first thing the pelican does in fishing is to fill up the bag, and
then it returns to digest its burden at leisure. When the bill
is opened to its widest extent, a person may run his head into
the bird's mouth, and conceal it in this monstrous pouch, thus
adapted for very singular purposes. Yet this is nothing to what
Ruysch assures us, who avers that a man has been seen to hide















T H E PE LIC A.N.
121
his whole leg, boot and all, in the monstrous jaws of one of these
animals. At first appearance this would seem impossible, as
the sides of the under chap, from which the bag depends, are
not above an inch asunder when the bird's bill is first opened;
but then they are capable of great separation; and it must ne-
cessarily be so, as the bird preys upon the largest fishes, and
hides them by dozens in its pouch. Tertre affirms that it will
hide as many fish as will serve sixty hungry men for a meal.”
In Montgomery's beautiful poem, “The Pelican Island,” there
is a very fine description of the fishing operations of this bird.
“At early dawn I marked them in the sky,
Catching the morning colors in their plumes ;
Not in voluptuous pastime revelling there,
Among the rosy clouds, which orient heaven
Flamed like the opening gates of Paradise:
–Eager for food, their searching eyes they fixed
On ocean's unrolled volume, from an height
That brought immensity within their scope;
Yet with such power of vision looked they down,
As though they watched the shell-fish slowly gliding
O'er sunken rocks, or climbing trees of coral.
On indefatigable wing upheld,
Breath, pulse, existence seemed suspended in them :
They were as pictures painted on the sky;
Till suddenly, aslant, away they shot,
Like meteors changed from stars to gleams of lightning,
And struck upon the deep; where, in wild play,
Their quarry floundered, unsuspecting harm,
With terrible voracity, they plunged
Their heads among the affrighted shoals, and beat
A tempest on the surges with their wings,
Till flashing clouds of foam and spray concealed them.
Nimbly they seized and secreted their prey,
Alive and wriggling in the elastic net,
L


122 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Which Nature hung beneath their grasping beaks,
Till, swoln with captures, the unwieldy burthen
Clogged their slow flight, as heavily to land
These mighty hunters of the deep returned.
There on the cragged cliffs they perched at ease,
Gorging their hapless victims one by one;
Then full and weary, side by side, they slept
Till evening roused them to the chase again.
The pelican is called, in Hebrew, kaath, which means a
vomiter. Its name was evidently suggested by its habit and
mode of discharging the contents of its bag, when either its own
hunger or the wants of its young call for it.
The pelican is very strong in its wings, which are covered
with thick plumage of an ash color, as are also the feathers
which cover its body. It has small eyes, when compared with
the rest of its head. Its bill is about eighteen inches in length,
“Birds of mighty wing,
Retorted neck, and javelin-pointed bill.”
The pelican is the largest of swimming birds. Arabs call it
the River Camel – Gimel el Bahr, as also they call the true
Camel, Land Ships; the American Pelican is brown; the Afri-
can white; and those that inhabit the Island of Manilla are
said to be rose-colored. Montgomery, the poet, in his “Pelican
Island,” describes them in a way similar to these last. They
“Displayed their forms
Amidst the golden evening; pearly-white,
But ruby-tinctured.”
This bird is very reluctant in its motions, slow in its flight,
and it only becomes active when it is pressed by the gnawings


T H E PE LIC A.N. 123
of hunger. In this respect it resembles some rational beings,
who will only labor for food; and they do so only because they
choose rather to stir than to starve! When these fowls go
abroad in search of food, “they raise themselves about thirty
or forty feet above the surface of the sea, and then turn their
head with one eye downward, and continue to fly in that pos-
ture. As soon as they perceive a fish sufficiently near the
surface, they dart down upon it with the swiftness of an arrow,
seize it with unerring certainty, and store it up in their pouch.”
They then rise and watch for fish as before. When their bag
is full, they fly to land, and leisurely devour the fruits of their
toil.
The pelican is a sad and melancholy bird. It seeks some
solitary place in a ravine, or along ledges of rocks, where it sits
upon a high branch in gloomy loneliness, as if half asleep, until
forced to go out in search of food. Its attitude, when it sits
alone, is peculiarly meditative; it rests its head upon the great
bag, and both upon the breast, and thus with a kind of dismal
solemnity dreams the hours away. It is this lonely habit of the
pelican which explains that passage in the Psalms, in which the
sorrowful Psalmist sits in solitude and bewails the sad condition
of his country and its altars:
“My heart is smitten, and withered like grass;
So that I forget to eat my broad.
By reason of the voice of my groaning
My bones cleave to my skin.
I am like a pelican of the wilderness.”
Sorrow naturally seeks retirement; and, in harmony with this
disposition of the sad to be alone, the sacred poet represents his
situation in his grief to be lonely, like that of a pelican in the
solitudes of the wilderness.


124 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Besides this it is only mentioned, in our translation, in
Leviticus and Deuteronomy, where it is classed among unclean
birds.
The word translated Cormorant in Isaiah and Zephaniah,
ought, however, to be rendered pelican. It is, no doubt, pro-
nounced unclean on account of its voracious and gluttonous
habits of life. It is said that its flesh smells very rancid, and
has a very disagreeable taste. Even the savages of America,
though they kill them in large numbers to make purses and
tobacco-pouches of their bags, do not eat their flesh.
It is said that by means of its vast pouch, or bag, it carries
large quantities of water far into the wilderness, where it depo-
sits it, as in small lakes, in the hollow of rocks, from which the
wants of its young are supplied. In this way, without intend-
ing it, the pelican sometimes does important service to the
traveller in the wilderness, who, by means of these cisterns,
quenches his burning thirst The thirsty Camel, we are told,
discovers the scent of water from a great distance, and thus
often is led to refresh itself from the stores of the pelican.
Among the ancients we find admirable qualities, transcen-
dant social virtues and affections, ascribed to this bird. It was
said that it opens the veins in its own breast, and feeds its young
with its own blood -
“The Pelicane, whose sons are nurst with bloode,
Forbidd to man she stabbeth deep her breast,
Self-murtheresse through fondnesse to her broode.”
This beautiful tradition has been pronounced fabulous. What a
pity! The idea, it is said, has derived its origin from the fact,
that in feeding its young, it is in the habit of squeezing the
food, or the juice of the food, deposited in its bag, into their











































T H E PE LIC A.N. 125,
mouths, by strongly compressing this bag upon its breast with
its bill. This action, says Shaw, might easily give occasion to
the received tradition and report, that the pelican, in feeding
her young, pierces her own breast, and nourishes them with her
blood.
“No need had she, as hieroglyphics feign –
A mystic lesson of maternal love –
To pierce her breast, and with the vital stream,
Warm from its fountain, slake their thirst in blood.”
The pelican is, when domesticated, a very friendly bird. One
that lived forty years at the court of the Duke of Bavaria
manifested quite uncommon sensations. It was much delighted
in the company and conversation of men, and in music, both
vocal and instrumental: for it would willingly stand by those
that sung or sounded the trumpet, and stretching out its head,
and turning its ear to the music, listened very attentively to its
harmony. Gessner tells us that the Emperor Maximilian had a
tame pelican, which lived about eighty years, and that it always
attended his army on its march. By the Emperor's direction,
it received its daily allowance like the soldiers.
The following beautiful description, combining much natural
history with as much exquisite poetry, is from “The Pelican
Island.” It commences with a pair that came to the island,
and in time peopled it with their offspring.
“Love found that lonely couple on their Isle,
And soon surrounded them with blithe companions.
The noble birds, with skill spontaneous, framed
A nest of reeds among the giant grass,
That waved in lights and shadows o'er the soul.
There, in sweet thraldom, yet unweeming why,
The patient dam, who ne'er till now had known


L 2
126
T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Paternal instinct, brooded o'er her eggs,
Long ere she found the curious secret out,
That life was hatching in their brittle shells.
Then, from a wild rapacious bird of prey,
Tamed by the kindly process, she became
That gentlest of all living things—a mother;
Gentlest while yearning o'er her naked young,
Fiercest when stirred by anger to defend them.
Her mate himself the softening power confessed,
Forgot his sloth, restrained his appetite,
And ranged the sky, and fished the stream for her.
Or, when o'erwearied nature forced her off
To shake her torpid feathers in the breeze,
And bathe her bosom in the cooling flood,
He took her place, and felt through every nerve,
While the plump nestlings throbbed against his heart,
The tenderness that makes the vulture mild;
Yea, half unwillingly his post resigned,
When, home-sick with the absence of an hour,
She hurried back, and drove him from her seat
With pecking bill and cry of fond distress,
Answered by him with murmurs of delight,
Whose gutturals harsh to her were love's own music.
Then, settling down, like foam upon the wave,
White, flickering, effervescent, soon subsiding,
Her ruffled pinions smoothly she composed;
And, while beneath the comfort of her wings,
Her crowded progeny quite filled the nest,
The halcyon sleeps not sounder, when the wind
Is breathless, and the sea without a curl.
—Nor dreams the halcyon of serener days,
Or nights more beautiful with silent stars,
Than, in that hour, the mother pelican,
When the warm tumults of affection sunk
Into calm sleep, and dreams of what they were,
– Dreams more delicious than reality.


T H E PE LIC A.N.
127
He sentinel beside her stood, and watched,
With jealous eye, the raven in the clouds,
And the rank sea-mews wheeling round the cliffs.
Wo to the reptile then that ventured nigh;
The snap of his tremendous bill was like
Death's scythe, down-cutting every thing it struck.
The heedless lizard, in his gambols, peeped
Upon the guarded nest, from out the flowers,
But paid the instant forfeit of his life;
Nor could the serpent's subtlety elude
Capture, when gliding by, nor in defence
Might his malignant fangs and venom save.
Ere long the thriving brood outgrew their cradle,
Ran through the grass, and dabbled in the pools;
No sooner denizens of earth, than made
Free both of air and water; day by day,
New lessons, exercises, and amusements
Employed the old to teach, the young to learn.
Now floating on the blue lagoon behold them;
The sire and dam in swan-like beauty steering,
Their cygnets following through the foamy wake,
Picking the leaves of plants, pursuing insects,
Or catching at the bubbles as they broke:
Till on some minor fry, in reedy shallows,
With flapping pinions and unsparing beaks,
The well-taught scholars plied their double arts,
To fish in troubled waters, and secure
The pretty captives in their maiden pouches;
Then hurry with their banquet to the shore,
With feet, wings, breast, half-swimming and half-flying.
But when their pens grew strong to fight the storm,
And buffet with the breakers on the reef,
The parents put them to severer proof: -
On beetling rocks the little ones were marshalled;
There, by endearments, stripes, example, urged
To try the void convexity of heaven,
And plow the ocean's horizontal field.

T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Timorous at first they fluttered round the verge,
Balanced and furled their hesitating wings,
Then put them forth again with steadier aim;
Now, gaining courage as they felt the wind
Dilate their feathers, fill their airy frames
With buoyancy that bore them from their feet,
They yielded all their burthen to the breeze,
And sailed and soared where'er their guardian led;
Ascending, hovering, wheeling, or alighting,
They searched the deep in quest of nobler game
Than yet their inexperience had encountered:
With these they battled in that element,
Where wings or fins were equally at home,
Till, conquerors in many a desperate strife,
They dragged their spoils to land, and gorged at leisure.
Thus perfected in all the arts of life,
That simple pelicans require—save one,
Which mother-bird did never teach her daughter,
—The inimitable art to build a nest;
Love, for his own delightful school, reserving
That mystery which novice never failed
To learn infallibly when taught by him:
–Thus perfected in all the arts of life,
That simple pelicans require, save this,
Those parents drove their young away; the young
Gaily forsook their parents. Soon enthralled
With love-alliances among themselves,
They built their nests, as happy instinct wrought
Within their bosoms, wakening powers unknown,
Till sweet necessity was laid upon them;
They bred, and reared their little families,
As they were trained and disciplined before.
Thus wings were multiplied from year to year,
And ere the patriarch twain, in good old age,
Resigned their breath beside that ancient nest,
In which themselves had nursed a hundred broods,
The Isle was peopled with their progeny.”



(ſt Cruit.
*Soon as the inclement winters vex the plain
With piercing frosts, or thick descending rain,
To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly,
With noise, and order, through the midway sky.”
THIS bird is tall, slender, and has a long neck and long legs.
It measures about three feet from its bill to the end of its tail,
about four feet from its head to its toe. It has considerable
resemblance to the stork, both in size and figure. Its plumage
is an ash color; and it has two large tufts of feathers that
spring from the pinions of each wing; these together help to
form a somewhat bushy tail, the feathers very much resembling
hair, and finely curled at the end. These feathers the bird has
the power of erecting or depressing at pleasure; it was formerly
customary to set them in gold, and to wear them as ornaments
in caps and bonnets.
The Crane was known to the most ancient writers. Homer
represents that they were regarded with special aversion by the
fabled Pigmies, an ancient race of beautiful dwarfs, only about
twenty-seven inches high.
“To pigmy nations wounds and death they bring.”
9 (129)

130 THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
“These pretie people Homer hath reported to be much troubled
and annoied by cranes. The speach goeth, that in the spring,
downe to the sea-side they did march, where they make foule
worke among the eggs and young cranelings newe hatched,
which they destroy without all pitie.” The fable will have it
that these little people went out against the cranes mounted on
the backs of rams and goats, armed with bows and arrows, and
a kind of bells and rattles to scare them away. It seems, like
many heroes of larger size, they depended more upon making a
noise, than upon fighting battles.
Much is said of the virtues and qualities of this bird by
ancient authors. “In describing it,” says Goldsmith, “they
have not failed to mix imagination with history. From the
policy of the crane, they say, we are to look for an idea of the
most perfect republic amongst ourselves; from their tenderness
to their decrepid parents, which they take care to nourish, to
cherish, and to support when flying, we are to learn lessons of
filial piety; but, in particular, from their conduct in fighting
with the pigmies of Ethiopia, we are to receive our maxims in
the art of war. In early times, the history of Nature fell to
the lot of poets only, and certainly none could describe it so
well; but it is a part of their province to embellish also: and
when this agreeable science was claimed by a more sober class
of people, they were obliged to take the accounts of things as
they found them; and, in the present instance, ſable ran down,
blended with truth, to posterity. In these accounts, therefore,
there is some foundation of truth; yet much more has been
added by fancy. The crane is certainly a very social bird, and
they are seldom alone. Their usual method of flying or sitting,
is in flocks of fifty or sixty together; and while a part feed, the
rest stand like sentinels upon duty. The fable of their support-


T H E C R A N E. 131
ing their aged parents, may have arisen from their strict con-
nubial affection; and as for their fighting with the pigmies, it
may not be improbable that they have boldly withstood the
invasions of monkeys coming to rob their nests.” The ancient
Greeks made the crane the symbol of watchfulness.
The crane is still a common bird in the East. “When Dr.
Chandler was in Asia, about the end of August, he saw cranes
flying in vast caravans, passing high in the air, from Thrace, as
he supposed, on their way to Egypt. In the end of March he
saw them in Lesser Asia, busily engaged in picking up reptiles,
or building their nests.”
The crane gathers much of its food along waters, such as
fish, earth-worms, snails, lizards, and various kinds of reptiles.
For this purpose Providence has furnished them with long legs
to wade, and long bills to fish in shallow waters. It is said,
however, that corn is its favorite food. They are thus in some
countries hard customers to the husbandman. In the inland
parts of the continent of Europe, at the close of Autumn, they
cross the country in flocks of sixty to one hundred, on their
way from northern regions towards the south, and when a corn-
field lies in their way, they sometimes descend upon it in the
night, “and the husbandman who lies down in joyful expecta-
tion, rises in the morning to see his fields entirely laid waste
by an enemy whose march is too swift for his vengeance to
overtake.”
The flesh of the crane, though now not prized, was much
sought after and highly relished at the tables of the ancients.
Plutarch tells us that, in his day, cranes were blinded and kept
in coops, where they were fattened, not only for the tables of
the nobles in Greece, but also for the feasts of the great at
Rome.

132 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIB L E.
-
“In general it is a peaceful bird, both in its own society, and
with respect to those of the forest. Though so large in appear-
ance, a little falcon pursues, and often disables it. The method
is, with those who are fond of hawking, to fly several hawks
together against it; which the crane endeavors to avoid by fly-
ing up perpendicularly, till the air becomes too thin to support
it any higher. The hawk, however, still bears it company;
and though less fitted for floating in so thin a medium, yet,
possessed of greater rapidity, it still gains the ascendency.
They both often rise out of sight; but soon the spectator, who
keeps his eye fixed above, perceives them, like two specks, be-
ginning to appear: they gather on his eye for a little space,
and shortly after come tumbling perpendicularly together, with
great animosity on the side of the hawk, and a loud screaming
on that of the crane. Thus driven to extremity, and unable
to fly, the poor animal throws itself upon its back, and, in that
situation, makes a most desperate defence, till the sportsman
coming up, generally puts an end to the contest with its life.
It was once the barbarous custom to breed up cranes to be thus
baited; and young ones were taken from the nest, to be trained
up for this cruel diversion.”
In flying they soar often to an enormous height; their notes
being the loudest of all the birds, are often heard in the clouds
when the bird itself is too high up to be seen. In these aerial
regions they direct their flight together by their cries, exhort-
ing each other either to proceed or descend. In their flight
‘they afford one of the most beautiful instances of animal
motion we can anywhere meet with. At a great height, wheel-
ing in circles, they appear to rest without effort on the surface
of an aerial current, by whose eddies they are borne about in
an endless series of revolutions; each individual describes a




T H E C R A N E. 133
large circle in the air, independently of his associates, and
uttering loud, distinct, and repeated cries. They continue thus
to wing their flight upwards, gradually receding from the earth,
until they become mere specks upon the sight, and finally alto-
gether disappear, leaving only the discordant music of their
concert to fall faintly on the ear, exploring
“Heavens not its own, and worlds unknown before.”
Though themselves unseen from earth, they have a distinct
sight of what lies beneath; and when hungry, a cornfield will
soon draw them into sight from out the azure sky.
It has already been observed, that the crane has the loudest
voice of all the feathered tribe. Chaucer has, in one line, alluded
to two prominent characteristics of this bird—its giant height,
and its trumpet voice.
“The crane, the geaunt, with his trompes soune.”
Its voice has a very peculiar clangor, which is produced by the
very extraordinary length, and singular contortion of its wind-
pipe. Goldsmith has given us a good account of the formation
of its vocal organs. “In quadrupeds the wind-pipe is short,
and the glottis, or cartilages that form the voice, are at that
end of it which is next the mouth; in waterfowl the wind-pipe
is longer, but the cartilages that form the voice are at the other
end, which lies down in their belly. By this means they have
much louder voices, in proportion to their size, than any other
animals whatever; for the note, when formed below, is rever-
berated through all the rings of the wind-pipe, till it reaches
the air. But the voice of the duck or goose is nothing to be
compared to that of the crane, whose wind-pipe is not only
made in the same manner with theirs, but is above twenty times
M



134 THE BIRDs of THE BIBLE,
as long. Nature seems to have bestowed much pains in length-
ening out this organ. From the outside it enters through the
flesh into the breast-bone, which has a great cavity within to
receive it. There, being thrice reflected, it goes out again at
the same hole, and so turns down to the lungs, and thus enters
the body a second time. The loud, clangorous sound which the
bird is thus enabled to produce is, when near, almost deafening;
however, it is particularly serviceable to the animal itself, either
during its migrations or its stay; by it the flock is encouraged
in their journeys; and if, while they are feeding, which is
usually performed in profound silence, they are invaded on any
side, the bird that first perceives the danger is sure to sound the
alarm, and all are speedily upon the wing.”
It is to this peculiarly loud, harsh scream of the crame, that
the prophet Isaiah refers:
“Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter.”
The language is elliptical. Taken literally, it would indicate
that the crane also chatters like the swallow, which is not the
case. “The ellipsis,” says Paxton, “may be supplied in this
manner, “As a crane, so did I scream; as a swallow, so did I
chatter. Such a supplement is not, in this instance, forced and
unnatural; for it is evidently the design of Hezekiah to say,
that he expressed his grief after the manner of these two birds,
and therefore suitably to each; and he uses the verb which pro-
perly corresponds only with the last noun, to indicate this
design, leaving the reader to supply the verb which corresponds
with the other. It is also perfectly agreeable to the manners
of the East, where sorrow is expressed sometimes in a low,
interrupted voice, and anon in loud continued exclamations.
The afflicted monarch, therefore, expressed his extreme grief


T H E C R A N E. 135
after the manner of the Orientals, in loud screams like the
crane, or in low interrupted murmurings like the swallow.” We
find, too, that when grief takes the form of horror, there is a
disposition to express it by chattering; and when it is poignant,
it finds naturally its expression in a harsh, shrill scream |
One of the most interesting features in the habits of the crane
is its migratory propensities. This bird is not a permanent
inhabitant of any place, or in any climate, but a sojourner in all.
“He changes place like a wanderer. He spends the autumn in
Europe; he then flies off, probably to some more southern cli-
mate, to enjoy part of the winter; returns to Europe in the
spring; crosses up to the north in the summer; visits those
lakes that are never dry; and then comes down again to make
depredations upon cultivated ground, in autumn.” They go and
come in very large numbers, and in regular flocks. Pliny says,
that before they depart for warm lands they assemble together
in one place, and there fly high up into the air, as if to look
abroad, and try the air and their wings. They select leaders,
who serve by turns; these seem to have the entire arrangement
and control of the flock, directing their flight by the loud clamor
of their voice. He also gives us the singular information, that
while these birds lie encamped, before their outset, they have
regular sentinels, who stand watch at night, holding a small
stone with their one foot, which, slipping away from those over-
come with sleep, and falling upon the ground, betrays, by the
noise it makes, the neglect and unfaithfulness of the slumbering
sentinel. In their flight, says the same author, they form a
triangle, something like the letter Y, or like the Greek delta:
and Cicero tells us, that Palmedes first noticed this manner of
flying among the cranes, and accordingly invented this shape of
the letter, and hence cranes were called the birds of Palmedes.

136 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
The migrations of the crane indicate very correctly certain
changes in the atmosphere and in the seasons; and on this ac-
count their movements were very closely watched by the an-
cients.
“Where do the cranes or winding swallows go,
Fearful of gathering winds and falling snow Ż
Conscious of all the coming ills, they fly
To milder regions and a southern sky.”
A traveller says, that in Lesser Asia the return of the crane
and the beginning of the bees to work, are considered as a sure
sign that the winter is past. When these birds disappeared, it
indicated unerringly that the winter was at the door, and the
mariner laid his frail bark snug to shore, and ventured no more
out into open seas.
All this the ancients noted. “Stillingfleet has given a quota-
tion from Aristophanes, which is quite appropriate here. The
crane points out the time for sowing, when she flieth with her
warning notes to Egypt. She bids the sailor hang up his rud-
der and take his rest, and every prudent man to provide him-
self with winter garments. On the other hand, the flight of
these birds towards the north, proclaimed the approach of
spring.” Hesiod says, “when thou hearest the voice of the
crane, clamoring annually from the clouds on high, recollect
that this is the signal for ploughing, and indicates the approach
of showery winter.” They were, in a certain sense, the pro-
phets of the seasons; their early arrival indicated plenty, their
late return foretold scarce times.
These habits of this bird, as now delineated, will serve to
illustrate that beautiful and affecting passage of the prophet
Jeremiah: -


T H E C R A N E.
“Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed time;
And the turtle and the crane and the swallow
Observe the time of their coming;
But my people know not the judgments of the Lord.”
This is a most cutting reproof. These birds of passage know
by instinct when to move away from danger and want, to where
safety and plenty are found; but my people, to whom I have
given reason, my prophets, and my word, to direct them, will
not be instructed. The crane, which knoweth her time, puts
them to shame. The crane can teach them wisdom
How much, also, there is in the habits and ways of this bird
to teach us implicit trust in the guidance of an ever active
Providence Though they sail through strange heavens, and
pass over lands and seas unknown, yet they are directed unerr-
ingly by One who cares for the fowls of heaven. They yield
themselves to the sure dictates and direction of that instinct
with which a kind God has endowed them. We, as a higher
order of His creatures, are called to surrender ourselves to a
directing power higher than instinct, and to “walk by faith,”
assured that, however devious the way, it will lead us at last to
“A land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign.”
T H E BIRDS OF P A S S A. G. E.
Birds, joyous birds of the wandering wing !
Whence is it ye come with the flowers of spring”
—“We come from the shores of the green old Nile,
From the land where the roses of Sharon smile,
From the palms that wave thro' the Indian sky,
From the myrrh-trees of glowing Araby.

M 2
138
T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
“We have swept over cities in song renowned—
Silent they lie with the deserts round !
We have cross'd proud rivers, whose tide hath rolled
All dark with the warrior-blood of old;
And each worn wing hath regained its home,
Under peasant's roof-tree, or monarch's dome.”
And what have ye found in the monarch's dome,
Since last ye traversed the blue sea's foam 7
—“We have found a change, we have found a pall,
And a gloom o'ershadowing the banquet's hall,
And a mark on the floor as of life-drops spilt—
Nought looks the same save the nest we built ".
Oh! joyous birds, it hath still been so;
Through the halls of kings doth the tempest go
But the huts of the hamlet lie still and deep,
And the hills o'er their quiet a vigil keep.
Say, what have ye found in the peasant's cot,
Since last ye parted from that sweet spot?
A change we found there—and many a change |
Faces and footsteps, and all things strange .
Gone are the heads of the silvery hair,
And the young that were, have a brow of care,
And the place is hushed where the children played —
Nought looks the same save the nest we made l’
Sad is your tale of the beautiful earth,
Birds that o'ersweep it in power and mirth !
Yet through the wastes of the trackless air,
Ye have a Guide, and shall we despair?
Ye over desert and deep have passed –
So may we reach our bright home at last!


d it iſ luk.
“A life at every meal, rapacious Hawk?
Spare helpless innocence.
–Troth, pleasant talk |
Yon sparrow snaps more lives up in a day,
Than in a twelvemonth I could take away; —
But hark, most gentle censor, in your ear,
A word, a whisper—you, are you quite clear?
Creation's groans, through ocean, earth, and sky,
Ascend from all that walk, or swim, or fly.”
THE Hawk is mentioned in the Bible in three distinct
passages, each of which will be brought under review in our
notice of this bird. In two passages allusion is made to its
uncleanness, according to the Jewish law; and in the other
passage there is reference to its migratory habits, and the swift-
mess of its flight. There are two species of the hawk kind, the
habits of which will explain these two classes of passages.
I. T H E G O SS-H A W K.
This is evidently the species of this bird referred to in Leviti-
cus and in Deuteronomy as unclean. This will appear from a
description of this bird, and its habits of life.

(139)
140 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
The Goss-Hawk is common in the East. It is somewhat
larger than our buzzard, one foot ten inches in length, slender
in appearance, and more comely than the buzzard.
“Its bill is blue, tipped with black, the cere green; the eyes
yellow ; over each eye there is a whitish line; the head and all
the upper parts of the body are of a deep brown color; and each
side of the neck is irregularly marked with white; the breast
and body are white, with a number of wavy lines, or bars of
black; the tail is long, of an ash color, and crossed with four
or five bushy bars; the legs are yellow, and the claws black;
the wings are much shorter than the tail.”
This bird in the above passages is pronounced unclean. It
was to be held as an abomination by the children of Israel; they
were neither permitted to eat its flesh, nor to touch its carcass.
The reason for this is, no doubt, to be found in the following
two facts :
First. It is a bird of prey, and consequently cruel in its
temper, and gross in its habits of life.
“There was the tyrant with his fethers don,
And grene, I mean the goshawke that doth pine,
To birds, for his outragious ravine.”
It is quick-sighted, bold, daring, and ravenous. It feeds on
mice, and small birds, and raw flesh. It tears its victims to
pieces, and gorges down the pieces entire. This mode of living,
especially in warm climates, imparts a very offensive flavor to
their flesh. It is not relished by any people; and none are
known to eat its flesh, except under the pressure of the most
extreme emergencies of hunger. God would secure the Jewish
people against low and degrading habits, and elevate them to
that refinement and delicacy of taste which comports with the
dignity of rational, religious, and immortal beings. There is
wisdom in this law; for we know that there is an intimate con-


T H E H A W. K. 141
nection between the physical habits of a people, and their men-
tal and moral character. It is known that, among the heathen,
those who worship degraded objects as gods, become more
degraded themselves; so, in this case, those who are mean in
their modes and habits of life, suffer a corresponding degra-
dation in every other respect. By securing them from degrading
habits, he did in reality at the same time, in a degree, secure
them against degrading dispositions.
Secondly. The Hawk was very early held in the highest
estimation by the idolatrous heathen, and by them raised to the
rank and honor of a divinity. The Egyptians held no animal
so sacred as the ibis, and the hawk; among them it was sacred
to the Sun. It anciently played a very prominent and import-
ant part in the hieroglyphics of Egypt, as is still to be seen in
old inscriptions; though it is said that the living hawk is no
more to be seen in that country. The Greeks borrowed the
idea from the Egyptians, and also made the hawk sacred to the
sun, of which Apollo was the representative. So sacred were
these birds held, that if any one killed a hawk, either with
design or by accident, he was punished by death Even the
flight of the hawk was regarded as ominous; and it was thought
to be exceedingly fortunate to discover them flying in circles
from left to right, towards the south. The fact that idolaters,
especially in Egypt, were even already thus early regarding this
filthy bird as a divinity, was a good reason why God should
pronounce it unclean to his own people; and, by inspiring them
with disgust for it, guard them the most effectually against the
very appearance of evil. It were well if all Christians were
better guarded by a holy disgust against all which is made, by
the wicked, an offence to God, and a source of evil to man. “If
meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the
world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.”

142 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
II. T H E PIG E O N H A W. K.
This is evidently the species of the hawk kind referred to in
Job. God, in order to impress Job with a deep sense of his
own ignorance and powerlessness, and weakness of faith, refers
him to many mysteries in the natural world, challenging him
whether he understands them, and whether his power has made
them such. Among others he presents the challenge:
“Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom,
- And stretch her wings towards the south *
In this passage there is an allusion to the rapidity of its flight,
and also its habits of migrating to warmer lands in autumn.
This species of hawk is remarkable for the rapidity of its
flight, the quick motion of its wings in flying, and the great
distance to which its wings are able to bear it without resting.
This the Hebrews observed ; and it seems to have suggested its
name, which is nets, from the verb natsa, to fly. The ancients
reckoned the hawk the swiftest of all the feathered race. Homer
compares the descent of Apollo from heaven to the flight of the
hawk: “From the mountains of Ida he descended like a swift
hawk, the destroyer of pigeons, that is the swiftest of birds.”
Ajax tells Hector that the day should come when he would
wish for horses swifter than hawks to carry him back to the
city. The Egyptians made the hawk the symbol of the winds,
on account of the rapidity of its flight.
“The Hawke, aerial hunter, swifte and bolde.”
Referring to this swift bird, God makes the challenge, Did
you give the hawk those swift wings, and is it capable of such
astonishing flight by your wisdom, power, and skill?
The latter part of the verse, “and stretch her wings towards
the south,” is an allusion to the migratory habits of this bird.
The hawk belongs to that large class of birds of passage, whi


T H E H A W. K. 143
make for the south or warm climates at the approach of winter.
Now God demands of Job, Does your wisdom direct this bird to
do this? Did your skill implant into its nature that wonderful
sagacity of instinct, by which it knows, even better than man, at
what precise time it ought to move toward more congenial climes?
“Doth the wild haggard tower into the sky,
And to the south by thy direction fly?”
No! this is not of thee; it has its origin in the wisdom of a
God who doth all things well. It is an evidence and an example
of that over-ruling Providence, by which all creatures are
governed and directed for their good. He who has so made
this bird, and who so directs its flight, will see to it that thou,
O my servant Job, art safely led. That God, who cares for
birds, will much more care for you, O you of little faith.
There is a world of comfort in this reflection. How often are
faithless children of their Heavenly Father afraid that the way
in which He leads them will end in darkness! How often,
thus, do they virtually reflect upon both His wisdom and His
love! Such ought to remember, for their comfort, and for the
strengthening of their feeble faith, that the same God who, by
instinct, directs birds to the place of comfort and safety, is
leading them also, by a power infinitely higher than instinct,
even by the suggestions of His all-gracious providence; and so
much as they are of more value than many birds, so much
stronger reason have they to submit themselves in humble, joy-
ful confidence, to His all-wise guidance. -
BIRDS OF P A S S A. G. E.
Black shadows fall
From the lindens tall,
That lift aloft their massive wall
Against the southern sky:


144
T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
And from the realms
Of the shadowy elms
A tide-like darkness overwhelms
The fields that round us lie.
But the night is fair,
And everywhere
A warm, soft vapor fills the air,
And distant sounds seem near;
And above, in the light
Of the star-lit night,
Swift birds of passage wing their flight
Through the dewy atmosphere.
I hear the beat
Of their pinions fleet,
As from the land of snow and sleet
They seek a southern lea.
I hear the cry
Of their voices high
Falling dreamily through the sky,
But their forms I cannot see.
0, say not so
These sounds that flow
In murmurs of delight and woe,
Come not from the wings of birds.
They are the throngs
Of the poet's songs,
Murmurs of pleasure, and pains, and wrongs,
The sound of winged words.
This is the cry
Of souls, that high
On toiling, beating pinions, fly,
Seeking a warmer clime.
From their distant flight
Through realms of light
It falls into our world of night,
With the murmuring sound of rhyme.































|


|
|
|
|



d it "uttingt.
“I love to hear the cur
Of the night-loving Partridge.”
THE Hebrew name of the Partridge is Ker or Kore, from the
verb KARA, to cry. It is supposed that it received its name
from its note. The same is the case in other languages; thus
in Arabic it is called Kurr ; and in the province of Andalusia,
in Spain, it is called churr. In all these names there is a re-
semblance of sound to its note. Any one who, in Autumn.
remains upon the field after sunset, will find abundant opportu-
nity of hearing this noise, or note, of the Partridge, from which
it originally derived its name.
The Partridge is a beautiful bird. It is about one foot in
length. “ The general color of the plumage is brown and ash,
elegantly mixed with black; each feather is streaked down the
middle with buff color; the sides of the head are tawny; the
eyes are hazel; and under each eye there is a saffron-colored
spot, which has a granulated appearance; and between the eye
and the ear is a naked skin of a light scarlet, which is not very
conspicuous but in old birds; on the breast there is a crescent
of a deep chestnut color; the tail is short; the legs are of a
10 N (145)

146 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
greenish white, and are furnished with a small knob behind.
The bill is of light brown. The female has no crescent on the
breast, and her colors in general are not so distinct and bright
as those of the male. There are generally from ten to fifteen
in a covey; and, if unmolested, they live from fifteen to seven-
teen years.” -
This bird is known in almost all inhabited parts of the world.
In warm climates, it is said, it breeds twice a-year. It begins
to build its nest early in May; it forms it of fine dry grass and
leaves upon the ground, and generally amid a thick tuft of
grass. It lays from fifteen to twenty-four pure white eggs.
It is exceedingly shy and timorous. It has been well desig-
mated by the poet as
“The shy partridge.”
It may well be shy, as it has some mortal enemies. Both hawks
and spaniels watch for it with untiring zeal. Spenser has
noticed this in the Faerie Queene.
“Like a fearfull partridge, that is fledd
From the sharpe hawke which her attached neare,
And falls to ground to seeke for succor theare,
Wher as the hungry spaniells she does spy,
With greedy iawes her ready for to teare.”
The awful position in which this bird is sometimes placed by
her watchful enemies, is graphically described by Prior:
“Have you marked a partridge quake,
Viewing a towering falcon night
She cuddles low behind the brake :
Nor would she stay, nor dare she fly!”
The partridge knows well how to conduct a ruse for the safety
of its young, when it is suddenly surprised by an enemy as it
leads them forth in search of food. “The mother throws her.
self in the path, fluttering along, and beating the ground with


T H E P A R T R ID G. E. - 147
her wings, as if sorely wounded; using every artifice she is
master of to entice the passenger in pursuit of herself, uttering
at the same time certain peculiar notes of alarm, well under-
stood by the young, who dive separately amongst the grass, and
secrete themselves until the danger is over; and the parent,
having decoyed the pursuer to a safe distance, returns by a cir-
cuitous route, to collect and lead them off. This well-known
manoeuvre, which, nine times in ten, is successful, is honor-
able to the feelings and judgment of the bird, but a severe
satire on man. The affectionate mother, as if sensible of the
avaricious cruelty of his nature, tempts him with a larger prize,
to save her more helpless offspring; and pays him, as avarice
and cruelty ought always to be paid, with mortification and dis-
appointment.” If he discover the ruse after pursuing the bird
awhile, he turns back, like one who has gone on an errand on
the first of April, thinking less of himself; and if he does not
discover it at all, he shows himself less wise than the bird. In
either case, it is best for him not to tell the story of his pursuit
to one who understands the habits of the bird.
This bird feeds upon grain, seeds, insects, and various
kinds of berries. It loves particularly Indian corn and buck-
wheat. It is very delicate in its tastes, and no doubt this has
something to do with the fine flavor of its flesh. It has always
been a great favorite as food. “Partryche, of all fowles, is most
soonest digested: and hath in hym moche nutriment.” So says an
old writer; and so every one who has tasted the bird can testify.
Being a favorite food, they are much sought after in the
winter. When the cold season is long, and the earth covered
with snow, they often suffer much, and are easily taken by the
hunter. “At such times, the arts of man combine with the
inclemency of the season for their destruction. To the ravages


148 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
of the gun are added others of a more insidious kind; traps
are placed on almost every plantation, in such spots as they
are known to frequent. These are formed of lath, or thinly-
split sticks, somewhat in the shape of an obtuse cone, laced
together with cord, having a hole at the top, with a sliding lid
to take out the game by. This is supported by the common
figure 4 trigger; and grain is scattered below, and leading to
the place. By this contrivance, several have sometimes been
taken at a time.”
This mode of catching partridges was perfectly familiar to
us in our boyhood. We shall never forget our trap beside a
ledge of rocks, and with what feelings of anxious expectation
we went out, time after time, to see our fortune. At last we
were successful. We came to the trap, and lo! there was a
whole covey secure in the inside. We removed the lid and
looked in. Oh! they were so beautiful—they looked so inno-
cent and pitiful! We looked again and again — put in our
hand, caught one, let it run again, and, at length, overcome by
pity and shame, with our foot upset the trap, and left the whole
flock to that liberty in which they were born. The same minute
we ſlung the trap upon the rocks, and thus ended our labors in
the calling of catching partridges. We said with emphasis:
“Detested sport,
That owes its pleasures to another's pain;
That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks
Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endued
With eloquence.”
The partridge is twice mentioned in the Bible. In both
cases a knowledge of the history and habits of this bird
is necessary to the understanding of the sense of Scrip-
ture. The first passage is: “The King of Israel is come out
.



T H E P A R T RID G. E. 149
to seek a flea, as when one doth hunt a partridge in the
mountains.”
To understand this allusion, we must remember that there
were two species of partridge in the Holy Land. The one is
the same as those familiar to us in our own fields. The other
was longer in its legs, and inhabited the mountainous districts.
These could not fly as well as those on the plains, but they could
run much faster. The Arabs still hunt these partridges in the
mountains, chasing them fiercely until they are tired down and
exhausted, when, finding it difficult to fly, their pursuers either
catch them alive or strike them down with bludgeons. Whoever
reads the history of Saul's pursuing David in the mountains to
take his life, will easily understand how much it resembles this
kind of partridge hunting. -
The other passage in which this bird is mentioned is this:
“As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not;
So he that getteth riches, and not by right,
Shall leave them in the midst of his days,
And at his end shall be a fool.”
There are a number of analogies pointed out by the learned,
which are designed to illustrate the idea in this passage. No
doubt they are all just. -
1. It is said that the partridge, like the common domestic
hen, frequently sits upon the nest and eggs of another, when its
own by some casualty have been broken, or are taken away by
preying enemies. “Now if, in the absence of the proper owner,
the partridge sits on the eggs of a stranger, when that stranger
returns to her nest and drives away the intruder before she can
hatch them, the partridge so expelled resembles a man in low
circumstances, who has for a time possessed himself of the


N 2
150 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
property of another, but is forced to relinquish his acquisition
before he can render it profitable.” He gets riches, but “not
by right,” and he shall leave them without getting any good
from them, and he shall go away as a fool who settled down
upon a false title.
2. The partridge builds her nest and lays her eggs on the
ground, where they are exposed to injury, and are frequently
destroyed before they are hatched. Sometimes they are broken
by the foot of man or animals. There are also a number of
enemies, who intrude upon her little home and drive her a Way;
thus the eggs are chilled and rendered unfruitful; besides, they
frequently build their nests upon low ground, where inundations
SWeep a Way nest and eggs, or where, at least, they are injured
by long-continued rain and moisture. It is said that even that
species of partridge which live ordinarily in the mountains, de-
scend in hatching time into the plains, in order that the young,
at their birth, may be surrounded by a ready subsistence. Here
they frequently lose all ere they have brought their offspring to
perfection. How often thus, while the miser, or the man of the
world, sits brooding over his ill-gotten gains, does some thievish
intruder or some flood of misfortune sweep them away, and he
stands as a fool before emptiness and vanity. Though he rises
early, sits up late, and eats the bread of sorrow, watching over
what he has gathered, with the hope that it will yield him hap-
piness, yet he never realizes what he expects shall one day be
a reward for his painful cares. He does not beget either for
himself or others – it is all a fruitless toil.
3. Some have suggested that the true force of the allusion is
only to be found in a new translation of the passage. Thus:
“The partridge gathers what he did not hatch: desiring only
riches, but not right.” To show the application of this pas-


T H E PARTRID G. E. 151
sage, thus translated, to the habits of this bird, it is said that
the male, which did not hatch the young, calls them together
in the evening when they are scattered over the field. He
gathers what he did not hatch. Yet this still leaves the text
clouded over; and seems not only far-fetched, but scarcely
falls in, without violent bending, with the remaining part of
the text.
4. We will venture to offer yet another, which we have not
yet seen noticed, but which seems to us warranted by the known
habits of this bird. We have seen that it sometimes sits on a
strange nest, when it finds its owner absent. We will suppose
it to find a nest of eggs which, from some cause or other, have
been entirely forsaken — perhaps its owner having left the nest
but for a short time, was taken by the fowler, and returning no
more, the eggs have been chilled, and are of course now unfruit-
ful. Another partridge finds them, sits upon them, and hatches
day after day these spoiled eggs. Thus, for instance, we have
seen the domestic hen sit week after week upon spoiled eggs.
It hatched away with astonishing patience, until it became a
skeleton. It may be driven from the nest; but it will return
to it again. Yet, with all its pains, it “ hatcheth them not.”
It got possession of them, “not by right,” and now its labors
only waste itself away, but produce nothing. It is compelled
at last to leave them in the midst of its days — having worn
out half of its life to no purpose, and it stands as a fool in the
end | - -
How much like this is the case of the man of riches, which
are ill-gotten, and over which he now acts the miser. See how
he wastes himself away in toil and care to hatch happiness
and comfort out of his bags! As faithfully as any fowl
that ever pined away over rotten eggs, does he brood over his

THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
gains! In many cases, he has so worn himself out as to be
actually taken away from them by death in the midst of his
days. IHe hatches to the last—he dies hatching—he clings to
his nest of bags with skeleton hands. “At his end he shall be
a fool!”
It is said that in the evening, when all other birds have
long since gone to rest, the partridge still runs about upon
the fields, pouring his unwearied cur into the ear of night.
So is the ceaseless and untiring running to and fro of the
covetous after much, and after more; and what are such
‘in the end’ but weary wasted fools? They have spent
their strength for nought. They rose up early and sat up
late, to make life longer; but instead thereof they have ren-
dered it shorter. They ate the bread of sorrow to find joy; but
it neither increased their happiness nor lengthened their life.
Pollock, in his Course of Time, has given us a most -
graphic description of fruitless hatching. Who has not seen
the original of this picture of -
A MIS EIR.
“Gold many hunted, sweat and bled for gold;
Waked all the night, and labored all the day.
And what was this allurement, dost thou ask?
A dust dug from the bowels of the earth,
Which, being cast into the fire, came out
A shining thing that fools admired, and called
A god; and in devout and humble plight
Before it kneeled, the greater to the less;
And on its altar sacrificed ease, peace,
Truth, faith, integrity; good conscience, friends,
Love, charity, benevolence, and all
The sweet and tender sympathies of life;


T H E PARTIRIDG E. 153
And, to complete the horrid murderous rite,
And signalize their folly, offered up
Their souls and an eternity of bliss,
To gain them, what?—an hour of dreaming joy,
A feverish hour that hasted to be done,
And ended in the bitterness of wo.
Most, for the luxuries it bought, the pomp,
The pride, the glitter, fashion, and renown,
This yellow phantom followed and adorned.
But there was one in folly farther gone,
With eye awry, incurable, and wild,
The laughing-stock of devils and of men,
And by his guardian angel quite given up,
The Miser, who with dust inanimate
Held wedded intercourse. Ill-guided wretch!
Thou mightst have seen him at the midnight hour,
When good men slept, and in light-winged dreams
Ascended up to God—in wasteful hall,
With vigilance and fasting worn to skin
And bone, and wrapped in most debasing rags—
Thou mights have seen him bending o'er his heaps,
And holding strange communion with his gold;
And as his thievish fancy seemed to hear
The night-man's foot approach, starting alarmed,
And in his old, decrepid, withered hand,
That palsy shook, grasping the yellow earth,
To make it sure.
Of all God made upright,
And in their nostrils breathed a living soul,
Most fallen, most prone, most earthly, most debased;
Of all that sold Eternity of Time,
None bargained on so easy terms with Death
Illustrious fool! nay, most inhuman wretch!
He sat among his bags, and, with a look
Which hell might be ashamed of, drove the poor
Away unalmsed, and midst abundance died,
Sorest of evils died of utter want.”

154
T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
T H E PARTRID G. E.
Thou art the sportsman's favorite bird—
Where'er we pass,
Through growing grass,
In early spring thy voice is heard.
When dew-drops sparkle in the sun,
At early dawn,
Along the lawn,
Under the fence-rails thou dost run.
In secrecy thy nest is made
Beneath the hedge,
And there the pledge
Of thy fond brood is snugly laid.
With faithful watch thou guardst that nest,
And keepst thy young
From every wrong,
Gathered beneath thy downy breast.
When summer days are sultry warm,
In safe retreat,
*Mid waving wheat,
Thou stayest free from heat and harm.
When autumn comes with ripening corn,
And cool winds sigh,
Through stubbles dry,
We meet thee at the early morn,
Joining thy mates in social glee,
Where brambles grow,
And waters flow,
Along the hill-side joyously.
In fine, thou art a lovely bird,
And with delight,
Thy clear Bob White!
Among the growing grass is heard.


(fºr Ruut 1.
“A stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.”
“And the hoarse raven on the blasted bough,
By croaking from the left presaged the coming blow.”
THE Raven has been called “the ebony bird.” It is so called
on account of its color, which is a beautiful shining glossy
black, like silk, a mixture of darkness and splendor. It derives
its name, in Hebrew, from its color—oreb, the evening. In
English it receives its name from its natural habit, it being a
ravenous bird.
Goldsmith describes it thus: “ The Raven is a bird found in
every region of the world; strong and hardy, he is uninfluenced
by the changes of the weather; and when other birds seem
numbed, or pining with famine, the Raven is active and healthy,
busily employed in prowling for prey, or sporting in the coldest
atmosphere. As the heats at the line do not oppress him, so he
bears the cold of the polar countries with equal indifference.”
The same author says, the Raven is sometimes seen of a
milk-white color; and supposes this to be the effect of the rigo-
- (155)

156 THE BIRDs of T iſ E BIBLE.
rous climate of the north. “It is most likely that this change
is wrought upon him as upon most other animals in that part
of the world where their robes, particularly in the winter,
assume the color of the country which they inhabit. As in
old age, when the natural heat decays, the hair grows gray,
and at last white; so among animals, the cold of the climate
may produce a similar languishment of color, and may shut up
those pores that conveyed the tincturing fluids to the extremest
parts of the body.” We know that a similar difference is found
to exist in regard to bears, those at the north being white.
The raven is a very sagacious bird. “He may be trained,”
says Goldsmith, “for fowling like a hawk; he may be taught to
fetch and carry like a spaniel; he may be taught to speak like
a parrot: but the most extraordinary of all is, that he can be
taught to sing like a man. I have heard a raven sing the Black
Joke with great distinctness, truth, and humor.” Thus the
poet, Edgar Allen Poe, is natural and correct, when, in his
celebrated poem, “The Raven,” he makes this bird
“Speak such words as – Nevermore!”
He is also cunning, thievish, and full of tricks. When tamed
he will steal the ladies' scissors from the open window, or take
away to his nest a tea-spoon, pen-knife, or ring.
The raven builds its nest in ancient trees, along the rocky
precipice, or in old towers. It lays five or six eggs of a pale
green color, marked with small brownish spots. The raven is
long lived. Hesiod says that he lives nine times as long as a
man. This may be an extreme assertion; they have, however,
been known to reach near one hundred years.
Appropriately does the poet make one, perched upon a limb,
speak to a spectator of his own years past and to come, thus:



T H E HAVEN. 157
“When I was hatched, my father set this tree,
An acorn then. Its fall I hope to see,
A century after thou hast ceased to be.”
Let us attend now to the sacred history of this bird. It is
frequently referred to in the Bible; and very interesting truths
are represented and illustrated by it. -
It is first mentioned in the account of the flood. After the
waters had been forty days upon the earth, and Noah was desi-
rous of ascertaining whether there was dry land any where, he
“sent forth a raven, who went forth to and fro, until the
waters were dried up from off the earth.” This bird was, no
doubt, chosen on account of its sagacity. It could almost un-
derstand what its master had in view in sending it forth from
the ark. Its flying to and fro, till the waters were dried up,
without returning to the ark, is also characteristic; for this
bird is exceedingly fond of exercise, and does not grow weary
in flight.
Herder, in a beautiful paramyth, ascribes his not returning to
forgetfulness and ingratitude; and makes the fearfulness which
all history associates with his name a punishment for his un-
faithfulness. Here it is.
NOAH' S R A V E N.
Anxiously did Noah look forth from his swimming ark,
waiting to see the waters of the flood abate. Scarcely had the
peaks of the highest mountains emerged from the waves, when
he called all the fowls around him. “Who, among you," said
he, “will be the messenger to go forth and see whether the time
of our deliverance is migh"
The raven, with much noise, crowded hastily in before all the
o

158 * T H E B I R D S OF THE BIBLE.
rest; he longed ardently after his favorite food. Scarcely was
the window open, when he flew away and returned no more.
The ungrateful bird forgot his errand and the interests of his
benefactor — he hung at his carcass!
But punishment did not delay. The air was yet filled with
poisonous fog, and heavy vapors hung over the putrid corpses;
these blinded his eyes and darkened his feathers.
As a punishment for his forgetfulness, his memory, as well as
his sight, became dim; even his own young he did not recog-
nize; and he experiences towards them no feelings of parental
joy. Frightened at their ugliness, he turns away and forsakes
them. The ungrateful one begets an ungrateful generation.
He receives not the richest of all rewards – the gratitude of
his own children |
In Leviticus and Deuteronomy the Raven is pronounced
unclean; and the Jews are forbidden to eat its flesh. The
reason of this prohibition is, no doubt, to be found in its mode
of life. It is a glutton in its habits. Besides this, it feeds upon
unclean food; thus its flesh is rendered unsavory and unwhole-
SOune.
This bird is celebrated in the history of the prophet Elijah.
When his enemies, under the direction of the furious Ahab,
pressed closely upon this good man, the Lord said to him, “Get
thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the
brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And it shall be that thou
shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens
to feed thee there. — And the ravens brought him bread and
flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and
he drank of the brook.”
Some have endeavored to explain away this beautiful and


T H E R A V E N. 159
touching miracle, or at least to reduce it to a mere natural oc-
currence. It has been said that the original word may be
rendered merchants or Arabs, or the inhabitants of the city
Arbo. But why should there be this shifting of the sense of a
plain passage; especially when it renders no service to the case.
For whether is easier for God, to command the ravens, or the
Arabs, to feed his prophet?
It has also been attempted to explain away the miracle by
recourse to the habits of this bird. Thus: It had its nest by
the brook Cherith — to this place it bore food for its own young
—the prophet took advantage of the natural habits of the bird,
and supplied his wants with that food which was designed for
the young ravens! Thus does a rationalistic spirit seek to drag
down the sublime miracles of the Scriptures into the mere
sphere and order of nature; and while it seeks to make the holy
oracles palatable to faithless human reason, it robs them of their
beauty and their power.
They were not men, but veritable ravens which fed the vene-
rable prophet. It is not by a trick played on irrational birds!
but by a beautiful and touching miracle, that God provided food
for his faithful servant. This is the sense of the Jewish and
Christian church. This is, moreover, not the only place in
Scripture where God commands irrational creatures to do His
will – the locusts, the serpent, the fish—thus showing that He
is Lord over all, able to make them all obedient to His holy
pleasure, and serviceable to the children of His love.
It was very anciently noticed, and it is confirmed by the
observations of modern naturalists, that the ravens at an early
period drive out their young ones from the nest, and thus oblige
them to seek their own food, and to become early hardened to
the perils and chances of a marauding life. Being thus left in a


160 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
helpless and destitute condition, they gave forth signs and notes
of distress. This fact explains those passages of touching beauty
and tenderness in Job: -
“Who provideth for the raven his food?
When his young ones cry unto God,
- They wander for lack of meat.”
Also a similar allusion in Psalms:
“He giveth to the beast his food,
And to the young ravens which cry.”
No doubt the Saviour also alludes to this fact in that beautiful
passage by which he would inspire us with an implicit trust in
Providence. “Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor
reap: which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth
them. How much more are ye better than the fowlsº
“Lo, the young ravens from their nest exiled,
On hunger's wing attempt the aerial wild
Who leads their wanderings, and their feast supplies?
To God ascend their importuning cries.”
The raven, when he lights upon a dead body to feed upon it,
always begins with the eyes; this he regards as the most deli-
cious part. It was customary anciently in the East to take the -
dead bodies of criminals who had suffered the punishment of
death at the hands of the law, and cast them forth upon the
open fields to be devoured by the beasts of the fields and the
fowls of heaven. This mode of punishment was dreaded above
all others by the orientals. Aristophanes, an old man, depre-
cates the punishment of being given as a banquet to ravens;
and Horace pronounces it as the last degree of degradation to
be devoured by these hateful birds. This gives a fearful mean-
ing to the saying of Solomon:

T H E R A V E N. 161
“The eye that mocketh at his father,
And despiseth to obey his mother,
The ravens of the valley shall pick it out,
And the young eagles shall eat it.”
How often does that course of life which ends in capital
punishment, begin by disobedience and disrespect to parents!
Here is a true prophecy. It is a common expression in the
East, in reference to one who is leading an improper course of
life: “Ah! the crows shall one day pick out thy eyes!” “Yes,
the lizards shall lay their eggs in thy sockets!”
It is on account of the beautiful glossy blackness of this bird
that the spouse compares the hair of her Beloved to it:
“What is thy beloved more than another beloved,
O thou fairest among women 7
My beloved is white and ruddy,
The chiefest among ten thousand.
His head is as the most fine gold,
His locks are bushy, and black as a raven.”
The raven was regarded by the orientals as an ominous bird.
According as he flew or croaked, he waked distressful forebo-
dings in the bosoms of men. From his habits of preference to
live amid old ruins, or in gray and dreary towers, gloomy asso-
ciations were connected with this bird. Thus the poet:
“Thin is thy plumage, death is in thy croak;
Raven, come down from that majestic oak.”
The Romans consecrated the raven to Apollo, the god of
divination; hence its flight and croaking were noticed with
great solemnity, and wherever he came he was regarded as a
messenger of evil.


11 0 2
162 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
“The raven himself is hoarse,
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.”
“Even at this moment, in some parts of the world, if a raven
alight on a village church, the whole fraternity is in an uproar;
and Heaven is importuned, in all the ardor of devotion, to avert
the impending calamity.”
“O, it comes o'er my memory,
As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
Boding to all.”
It was anciently believed that the raven was always near a
house infected with the plague; and also that when a raven
flies over a house in which some one is sick, his end is near.
To this Shakspeare alludes:
“The sad presaging raven tolls
The sick man's passport in her hollow beak;
And, in the shadow of the silent night,
Doth shake contagion from her sable wing.”
Shakspeare thus pronounces a curse upon Prospero and
Ariel, by the mouth of his savage and deformed Caliban:
“As wicked dew as eer my mother brushed
With raven's feather from unwholesome fen,
Drop on you both.”
The raven, as a bird of ill omen and of gloomy habits, is
alluded to by Isaiah, when he speaks of the desolations which
should come upon Idumea:
“The owl also, and the raven shall dwell in it.”
Let us not, however, forget, that to ascribe our ill-fortunes to
the raven is pagan piety. The ruins of which Isaiah speaks
-


THE RAVEN. 163
were foretold, not by ravens, but by God's prophets. The ravens
did not make them, but only sat among them after Divine jus-
tice had made them, as a punishment for the sins of the people.
It were well if, in all cases, men did trace their bad luck to
their own faults and follies, rather than to any omens either of
bird, beast or stars. How often do persons blame hard fate for
their misfortunes, when they ought to blame themselves | The
poet Gay has illustrated this in a very impressive manner:
“Betwixt her swaggering panniers' load
A farmer's wife to market rode,
And, jogging on, with thoughtful care,
Summed up the profits of her ware;
When, starting from her silver dream,
Thus far and wide was heard her scream :
“That raven on yon left-hand oak-
Curse on his ill-betiding croakſ –
Bodes me no good.” No more she said,
When poor blind Ball, with stumbling tread,
Fell prone; o'erturned the pannier lay,
And her mashed eggs bestrowed the way.
She, sprawling in the yellow road,
Railed, swore, and cursed: “Thou croaking toad,
A murrain take thy whoreson throat!
I knew misfortune in the note.”
“Dame,” quoth the raven, “spare your oaths,
Unclench your fists, and wipe your clothes.
But why on me those curses thrown?
Goody, the fault was all thine own;
For had you laid this brittle ware
On Dun, the old sure-footed mare,
Though all the ravens of the hundred
With croaking had your tongue out-thundered,
Sure-footed Dun had kept her legs,
And you, good woman, saved your eggs.”

164 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
By a far more serious kind of folly have hundreds of young
persons, by lives of lust and sin, brought upon themselves the
dark shades and shapes of guilt and despair, fancying all the
time that some hateful and hating ſate was dooming them. We
give below a poem which all such —and all in the way of
becoming such—will do well to study. It needs to be studied.
“Beautiful poem,” thousands have exclaimed. “What does the
poem mean?" has been asked by thousands of others. No
difference whether we see the light, if we only feel the heat.
Ah! the raven is a gloomy bird, which seems to mourn over
what it gazes upon. Its croakings are voices in the wilderness,
darkly and awfully prophetic. Beware, young man! lest, when
you draw near the end of your life, and have lost the last thing
you loved and hoped in, you learn too late the ominous import
of this poem. When the darkness of despair gathers around
your soul, and the ghost of murdered years is grinning in your
dying face—when you hate the Past, loathe the Present, and
fear the Future, you may see in reality that evil Genius, of
which the raven is the embodiment, and feel the etermity of
meaning which lies in that fearful – “NEVERMORE /*
T H E R A V E N.
BY E D G A R A. Po E, DE cºd.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of half-forgotten lore–
While I nodded, nearly mapping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door;
“'Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “rapping at my chamber door–
Only this, and nothing more.”

T H E R A V E N. 165
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me —filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now to still the beating of my heart I stood repeating,
“'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door–
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door–
This it is, and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir” said I, “ or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, -
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door–
Darkness there, and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before:
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word “Lenore!”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word “Lenore!”
Merely this, and nothing more.
Back into my chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before,
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore –
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore; –
'Tis the wind, and nothing more '''

166 T H E B I R D S OF THE BIBLE.
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore:
Not the least obeisance made he ; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But with mien of lord or lady perched above my chamber door–
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door–
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven wandering from the nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore?”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
Much I marvelled, this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
For we can not help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door–
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door–
With such name as “Nevermore.”
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul he did in that outpour.
Nothing further then he muttered – not a feather then he fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than uttered, “Other friends have flown before —
On the morrow he will leave me, as my friends have flown before.”—
Then he answered, “Nevermore.”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster, until his soul one burden bore —
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of “Never—Nevermore.”



T H E R A V E N. 167
But the Raven still beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust, and door,
Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy thinking what this ominous bird of yore —
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant by croaking “Nevermore.”
Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned within my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining,
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, Nevermore
Then, methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch!” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee–by these angels he hath sent
thee
Respite—respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget the lost Lenore"
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore!”
“Prophet,” said I, “thing of evil—prophet still, if bird or devil!
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted–
On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore–
Is there, is there balm in Gilead? tell me—tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore I’
“Prophet” said I, “thing of evil—prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore–
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if within the distant Aidden
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore?” -
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

















168 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie which thou hast spoken
Leave my loneliness unbroken – quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my floor!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted – Nevermore.





Újt (Yumi.
“The people asked, and He brought quails,
And satisfied them with bread from heaven.”
THE Quail belongs to the same genus as the partridge. These
two birds are much alike in their shape and general appearance.
The quail is, however, only about half as large, more plump in
its appearance, and less rich in feathers. “The feathers of the
head are black, edged with brown; the breast is of a pale
yellowish red, spotted with black; the feathers on the back are
marked with lines of pale yellow, and the legs are of a pale
hue.”
The Quail is a bird of passage. In Europe they arrive from
the south in May, and leave again for the warm climates in
autumn. Crossing the Mediterranean twice a year, they stop
on its numerous islands to rest themselves, when they are
caught by the inhabitants in large quantities. It is said that
the Bishop of the Island of Capri, near Naples, receives the
largest portion of his income from the sale of quails–from
which circumstance the people of Naples call him familiarly the
Quail Bishop.
At the time of migration, in the spring and fall, they are also
P (169)


170 THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
found in immense numbers along the coasts of Egypt and Arabia.
Around Constantinople, in the fall of the year, the sun is often
obscured by clouds of quails; and they are, at such times,
caught in large numbers in nets on the high rocks of the Black
Sea and Bosphorus. They fly, especially in the evening, so
near the earth that little children catch them in their hands.
Those that take them string them upon a withe, one end of
which they cut to a sharp point, with which they pierce the
lower bill of the bird; and thus a string of fifty or sixty are
sold at market for a trifle. -
In Egypt, in the seasons when they are plenty, little else
than quails is eaten. As it is impossible to eat them as fast as
they are taken, and while they are yet fresh, many are salted
and smoked; thus they are used as food throughout the whole
year. What renders these birds so cheap in the markets, is the
fact that Mahomedans regard all flesh that has been strangled
as unclean, and hence they will buy quails only when they are
brought to market alive. Thus all those birds that come
strangled to market are bought by the Greeks and Copts at
half price.
Aristophanes says that no bird was more common in Greece
than the quail; and Juvenal asserts that none were cheaper at
Rome. Other writers tell us, that in the beginning of spring, a
hundred thousand are sometimes caught in one day, and that
within the space of five miles; and this rate of taking them
generally continues during a whole month. Varro asserts that
quails return from the south into Italy in immense numbers.
Hence their flight, when they approach the land, is alleged by
Pliny to be “attended with danger to mariners; for these birds,
wearied with their journey, alight upon the sails, and this
always at night, and sink their frail vessels.” Solonius, accord-


T H E QUAIL. - 171
ing to Bochart, bears testimony to the same fact, thus: “When
they come within sight of land, they rush forward in large
bodies, and with so great impetuosity, as often to endanger the
safety of navigators; for they alight upon the sails in the night,
and by their weight overset the vessels.” -
To show farther how immensely plentiful were these birds in
the East, and especially on the shores and countries surrounding
Egypt, we need only mention the fact that “many places have
borne the name of Ortygia – the Greek for quails–from the
multitude of quails which crowded their fields. Thus Delos was
called Ortygia. The island of Syracuse was known by the same
name; also the city of Ephesus, as well as a grove near it, and
another in the vicinity of Miletus. For the same reason the
whole country of Libya received from the ancients the name
of Ortygia. But quails are nowhere in greater numbers than
in Egypt and the surrounding countries, whither they are
allured by the intense heat of the climate, or the fertility of
the soil. Hence the remark of Josephus, that the Arabic Gulf.
is particularly favorable to the breeding of these birds. We
have also the testimony of Diodorus concerning the countless
numbers of quails about Rinocolura; and the ancients mention
a species of quail peculiar to Egypt, which is so numerous at a
certain season of the year, that the inhabitants, unable to con-
sume them all, are compelled to salt them for future use. This
was done in times when, according to Theocritus, the vale of
Egypt contained more than thirty thousand cities, and, according
to Josephus, seven hundred and fifty myriads of people, without
including the inhabitants of Alexandria.”
What has now been said of these birds will serve to illustrate
those passages of Scripture in which allusion is made to them.
When the children of Israel murmured against God, during


172 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
their journey through the wilderness, and cried earnestly for
meat, “it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and
crowded the camp.” They “came up” from the shores of the
Red Sea into the wilderness. -
On another occasion, when the people loathed the other food
which God gave them, and asked for meat, “there went forth a
wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let
them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side,
and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round about
the camp, as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth.
And the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and
all the next day, and they gathered quails: he that gathered
least gathered ten homers; and they spread them all abroad for
themselves round about the camp.”
That this last occasion when God sent quails to the camps of
Israel is not the same with the first one mentioned in Exodus,
is evident from the fact, that in the first passage they are said
to have come up for a single day only, while in the last they
are said to have come up for a whole month. Thus twice did
God command the quails to go up and feed His people
Though, as may be judged from the great numbers of these
birds, it may not have been necessary for God to create them
by a miracle at the time, yet His wondrous power and goodness
are equally manifest in the fact, that He brought them to the
camp just when they were desired. What a power is that which
can control the instincts of myriads of birds, and cause them to
go in concert upon an errand of mercy or judgment!
God's goodness to His people is seen in the fact that these birds
which He gave them as meat are “a most agreeable and delicious
food." We have met only one, an old author, who disputes this fact.
* Quayles, although they be of some men commended, yet ex-

THE QUAIL. - 173
perience proueth them to increase melancolye, and are of a
small nourisshinge.” The great host of naturalists are against
him in this thing, for by them they are pronounced the best of
food. Besides this, He gave them these delicious birds in great
abundance.
“The people asked, and He brought quails,
And satisfied them with bread from heaven.”
“He sent them meat to the full.
He caused an east wind to blow in heaven:
And by his power he brought in the south wind.
He rained flesh upon them as dust,
And feathered fowl like as the sand of the sea:
And he let it fall in the midst of their camp,
Round about their habitations.
So did they eat, and were well filled:
For he gave them their own desire.”
Thus did a kind Heavenly Father feed a perverse and rebel-
lious race in the desert. He cast them not away in His anger,
but bare with them in patience forty years. Thus He gives us
an example of His long-suffering, which bids us never yield to
despair. Let it not, however, be forgotten that the same God
who fed them to draw them to Himself, afterwards also punished
them for continued ingratitude and perseverance in sin.
“They were not estranged from their lust:
But while their meat was yet in their mouths,
The wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them,
And smote down the chosen men of Israel.
For all this they sinned still,
And believed not for his wondrous works.
Therefore their days did he consume in vanity,
And their years in trouble.
When he slew them, then they sought him.




P2
174 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
And they returned and inquired early after God.
And they remembered that God was their rock,
And the High God their redeemer.”
Though He bare long with those that murmured against Him
in the desert—though He did not for the first offence cut them
off as they deserved, but rather fed them and did them good,
yet when they would not turn from their rebellious ways, He
at length “sware in His wrath that they should not enter into
his rest l”
“Thus if your ears refuse,
The messages of grace;
And hearts grow hard, like stubborn Jews—
That unbelieving race:
The Lord, in vengeance drest,
Will lift his hands and swear,
You that despise my promised rest,
Shall have no portion there !”




Újt (Englt.
“Art thou the king of birds, proud Eagle, say?
—I am; my talons and my beak bear sway;
A greater king than I, if thou wouldst be,
Govern thy tongue, but let thy thoughts be free.”
“King of the mountain, there are few like thee! ||
Whose steady eye defies the sun itself,
Whose wings, cleaving the clouds of middle air,
Fold only on the rock where night comes down
In double depth, and thou art poised alone,
In self-reliance almost terrible.”
- THE Eagle was well known to the sacred writers, and it is
often referred to in the Scriptures. It is still an inhabitant of
the Holy Land; travellers have found numerous large Eagle's
feathers scattered on the ground beneath the lofty cedars
which still crown the summits of Lebanon. It is said that the
Eagle has a particular partiality for cedars. This accords
exactly with the prophet's allusion to this bird:
“A great eagle with great wings, long-winged,
Full of feathers, which had divers colors,
Came unto Lebanon, and took the highest branch in the cedar.”





















(175)
176 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Its name in Hebrew is derived from a verb which means to
lacerate, or tear to pieces. As its name indicates, so does it
deal with its prey, it being exceedingly fierce and terrible in an
onslaught.
There are a great many different species of eagle. Goldsmith
describes fifteen kind; but all have very much the same general
form and habits. The noblest among them is the Golden Eagle
—it was called by the Ethiopians “Father Long-beard,” on ac-
count of its having a tuft of hair growing out below its beak.
Job, in general, shows a masterly acquaintance with the
various departments of Natural History to which he refers; and
his description of the eagle is remarkably comprehensive and
correct.
“Doth the eagle mount at thy command,
And make her nest on high 7
She dwelleth and abideth on the rock,
Upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place.
From thence she seeketh her prey,
And her eyes behold afar off.
Her young ones also suck up blood:
And where the slain are, there is she.”
“The eagle,” says Paxton, “is the strongest, the fiercest, and
the most rapacious of the feathered race. He dwells alone in
the desert, and on the summits of the highest mountains; and
suffers no bird to come with impunity within the range of his
flight. His eye is dark and piercing, his beak and talons are
hooked and formidable, and his cry is the terror of every wing:
His figure answers to his nature; independently of his arms, he
has a robust and compact body, and very powerful limbs and
wings; his bones are hard, his flesh is firm, his feathers are

T H E E A G L E. 177
- - -
coarse, his attitude is fierce and erect, his motions are lively,
and his flight is extremely rapid.”
We have a beautiful poetical description of the eagle by Mrs.
Barbauld :
“The royal bird his lonely kingdom forms
Amid the gathering clouds and sullen storms:
Through the wide waste of air he darts his flight,
And holds his bounding pinions pois'd for sight;
With cruel eye premeditates the war,
And marks his destined victim from afar.
Descending in a whirlwind to the ground,
His pinions like the rush of waters sound;
The fairest of the fold he bears away,
And to the nest compels the struggling prey.”
The eagle is a solitary bird, like the lion among quadrupeds.
Only two, a male and female, go together. After they have
once paired, they never separate, but are united for life; and
they do not change their place of abode. Two pair of eagles
are seldom seen in the same mountain. It is so voracious that
it requires a large territory to supply it with sustenance. Be-
sides, it must have space to display its feeling of sovereignty
and independence. Hence it is properly called the king-bird.
It is truly royal in its ambition. It disdains dependence, and
hence it seldom makes depredations on the habitations of men.
It will not condescend to stoop for small prey; small and harm-
less birds are beneath its notice. When a little pressed by
hunger, it will sometimes call on the farmer in the shadow of
its mountain for geese, turkeys, lambs, and kids; but it prefers
to exercise its own skill upon hares, fawns, and the larger kind
of wild fowl. It never drinks water, but it loves blood, and
especially the blood of fawns, which it kills for that purpose.
It finds great pleasure in cheating the fish-hawk of its prey.

12
178 THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
On some high frowning rock, along the slope of the mountain
around which the river winds, sits the solitary eagle, watching,
with the keenest eyes, the movements of his friend the fish-
hawk. When the hawk has secured the fish, he swoops down
toward him, not to take the fish there, but to cause him to
mount in the air with it – up, up they go, the eagle above the
hawk, threatening it by certain motions well understood, until
at length the hawk drops the fish, and that moment the eagle
darts down like an arrow, and seizes the fish before it reaches
the earth.
On account of the keenness of their eye, they can discern
their prey upon the earth from an immense height; and, being
swift as an arrow in flight, they seldom fail to secure it. Only
ducks, geese, and swans sometimes elude them by diving; but
the wary bird has an expedient to meet this case. Two eagles
go together, “both fly to a certain height, immediately after
which one of them glides with great swiftness towards the prey;
the latter, meantime, aware of the eagle's intention, dives the
moment before he reaches the spot. The pursuer then rises in
the air, and is met by its mate, which glides towards the water-
bird, that has just emerged to breathe, and forces it to plunge
again beneath the surface, to escape the talons of this second
assailant. The first eagle is now poising itself in the place
where its mate formerly was, and rushes anew to force the
quarry to make another plunge. By thus alternately gliding,
in rapid and oft-repeated rushes, over the ill-fated bird, they
soon fatigue it—when it stretches out its neck, swims deeply,
and makes for the shore, in hopes of concealing itself among
the rank weeds. But this is of no avail, for the eagles follow
it in all its motions, and the moment it approaches the margin,
one of them darts upon it, and kills it in an instant, after which


T H E E A G L E. 179
they divide the spoil.” How remarkably near to judgment does
the instinct of the bird, in this case, seem to approach! What
calculation, we might almost say reasoning, appears in every
movement! -
It is almost impossible to tame an eagle. The same is the case
with it as with the lion; it may for a time seem to have sub-
mitted its wild nature to the wish and will of its master; but at
an unexpected moment it casts off all its restraints, and its origi-
nal fierceness appears. On account of its permiciousness, severe
measures have, in some countries, been taken to extirpate it.
In the Orkney Islands there is a law according to which the
person who kills an eagle is entitled to a hen out of every house
in the parish in which the plunderer is killed.
The most fearful of all which is connected with this bird is,
that it sometimes even seizes little children, and bears them
away, either whole or in parts, dead or alive, through the air
to its nest. There are many mournful instances of this kind
upon record. We will give but one example, which we trans-
late from a small German work on “Biblical Natural History.”
A shepherd of the Alps lived, with his wife and three chil-
dren, which were boys, in his shepherd-hut on the Alps, near the
source of the river Durance. The oldest boy was eight years
old, and simple; the other was five years old, and a mute. One
day, as the children were playing some distance from the hut,
there came an eagle, and took away the third one, a boy three
years of age. The two older ones ran to the house, and endea-
vored, by gestures and motions, to make known to their mother
what had happened. The mute boy gave every sign of fear.
fright, and deep sorrow. The simple one sought, by expressions
of apparent joy, and by wonderful leaping, to represent one
who lays hold upon some loved object and presses it to his
- m

180 - T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
heart. In the meantime, the entire day passed away in fruitless
search for the lost child.
The next morning, as the parents with the two children were
continuing to seek for the missing child, an eagle flew past
them. At this occurrence, which is quite common in that
country, the mute boy clung to his father, crying out with
terror, while the simple one repeated his singular leaping. Now,
for the first time, the thought entered the mind of the anxious
parent, that an eagle must have carried away the lost child in
its fearful talons. In the meantime, however, the ever wakeful
eye of Divine Providence had been graciously open toward the
child. In the same hour when the eagle lodged its human
prey in its eyrie, an Alpine hunter had taken his position in a
favorable spot. Think of his feelings, as he saw the fearful
bird slowly ascending with its burden, hearing at first only the
cries of the child, but soon discerning its whole form in the
talons of the eagle. He took aim at the bird, and at the
risk of hitting the child with the bird, or without the bird,
he nevertheless resolved rather even to shoot the child than see
it torn by the bird. Just at the moment when the eagle lighted
upon the rock, the hunter, with a silent earnest prayer, drew
his trigger, and lodged his load right into the heart of the bird!
In a moment more he had climbed to the nest of the eagle, and
bore away the child with unspeakable joy. It had received in
its arm and in its side severe, but not deadly, wounds from the
claws of the eagle.
Twenty-four hours passed before the hunter had been able to
find the parents to whom the child belonged; and in the very
moment when the parents made the fearful discovery that the
child had been so carried off, the hunter was already on his
way to bear it in triumph to the arms of its mother.

T H E E A G L E. 181
There is frequent reference in Scripture to the grand and
triumphant soaring of the eagle. Thus riches, which so often
suddenly leave their possessor, are said to fly away quick like
eagles: -
“Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?
For riches certainly make themselves wings; *
They fly away as an eagle toward heaven.”
It ascends higher than any other bird, looking with open eyes
into the sun as it darts upward. “In his daring excursions he
is said to leave the clouds of heaven, and regions of thunder
and lightning, and tempest far beneath him, and to approach
the very limits of ether.” It was called, on this account, by
the ancients, the “bird of Jove,” and sometimes the “bird of
heaven.”
“There might men the royall egle find,
That with his sharpe looke perseth the Son.”
On account of its erect and majestic mien in sitting, its extra-
ordinary dignity and strength, the astonishing beauty and sub-
limity of its appearance, it has received the title of “king of
birds.” Chaucer, in his “ Assembly of Foules,” makes Nature.
in her speech, give to the eagle the right of speaking first, and
commends it to the rest of the birds as “the foule royall.”
“The tercell egle, as ye know full wele,
The foule royall, above you all in degre,
The wise and worthie, the secret true as stele,
The which I have formed, as ye may see,
In every parte as best likith mee.”
But now hear. It is earnestly said — though it may not be
found in the books—yet it is earnestly said that the title “king
of birds” does not belong of right to the eagle. It did once,
- Q



182 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
but there afterwards arose one, not greater it is true, but wiser
than the eagle, and by its own wisdom gained the crown. What
bird is that? exclaims the reader. We answer – despise not
the day of small things—it is the little WREN, which builds its
nest in the hollow corner-post of the garden fence, and goes
glibly out and in at the knot-hole. Behold, does not its name,
in German, designate its honor and standing—ZAUN KöNIG —
garden-fence king ! Let no one suppose that his realm extends
only over that one post in the fence; for
“Higher far his proud pretensions rise.”
He is actually regarded as king of all the birds; and he became
such, it is said, in this wise, namely: There was a time when the
birds assembled to make for themselves a king. It was agreed
upon that the bird which should fly highest should be thenceforth
king of birds. There was a general attempt—and up, up went
the birds; but the eagle rose far above all, until he seemed lost
in the very blaze of the sun When he had reached the highest
point to which the thin air would bear his weight, and was
about to descend in triumph to be crowned — behold, up jumps
the little wren from the eagle's back, a full furlong above the
highest point the eagle had reached . Thus the wren won the
crown, and ever since he is called—by some, perhaps, out of
contempt for his little self, and his little post-palace, but by
others from true respect for his wisdom –ZAUN KöNIG! Be
humble, proud eagle: there is a flaw in thy royal claims.
There is another little bird, a trifle larger than the wren,
which, on other grounds, disputes with the eagle, in good ear-
nest, the right to the title, “king of birds.” It is the king-bird,
sometimes called the field-marten. “The name king, as well
as tyrant, has been bestowed on this bird for its extraordinary


T H E E A G L E. 183
behaviour in breeding-time, and for the authority it assumes
over other birds. His extreme affection for his mate, nest, and
young, makes him suspicious of every bird that comes near his
residence, so that he attacks every intruder without discrimina-
tion. His life at this season is one continued scene of broils
and battles; in which, however, he generally comes off con-
queror. Hawks and crows, the bald eagle, and the great black
eagle, all equally dread a rencontre with this merciless cham-
pion, who, as soon as he perceives one of these last approaching,
launches into the air to meet him, mounts to a considerable
height above him, and darts down on his back, sometimes fixing
there, to the great annoyance of his sovereign, who, if no con-
venient retreat be near, endeavors, by various evolutions, to rid
himself of his merciless adversary; but the king-bird is not so
easily dismounted. He teases the eagle incessantly, sweeps
upon him, and remounts, that he may descend on his back with
greater violence; all the while keeping up a shrill and rapid
twittering.” Persons who reside in the country have frequently
witnessed the earnest contests of the king-bird with the large
birds of prey; and have had no difficulty in deciding which
seemed most annoyed.
The eagle builds its nest in the highest and most inaccessible
crags and cliffs of mountains. The ancients had a superstitious
notion, that in order to preserve its nest from poison, it had in
it a precious stone called aetite, by virtue of which all evil was
averted from the nest! These stones, when any one was so
fortunate as to find them, were regarded as possessing extraor-
dinary powers for the benefit of man. This story Pliny relates
– he, no doubt, gathered it from the traditions current in his
times. “The agle stones, called aetites, be much renowned in
regard of the verrie name that they carrie, found they are in



184 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
aegle's nests.” Even Cruden, in his Concordance, relates this
story as though it were to be counted among the veritable facts
of this bird's history.
God, in pronouncing the doom of proud Edom, alludes to the
high places in which the eagle builds its nest:
“Thy terribleness hath deceived thee,
And the pride of thine heart,
0 thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock,
That holdest the height of the hill:
Though thou wouldst make thy nest as high as the eagle,
I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord.”
Concerning the humiliation which He will bring upon the
haughtiness of Edom, God says, by the mouth of Obadiah:
“Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle,
And though thou set thy nest among the stars,
Thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.”
The eagle has, from very ancient times, been placed upon
ensigns in armies. The golden eagle, with extended wings, was
the ensign of Persia, and blazed upon the banners of Cyrus.
“It is remarkable,” says Dr. Harris, “ that Cyrus, compared, in
the thirty-sixth chapter of Isaiah to an eagle—so the word
translated ‘ravenous bird” should be rendered—is by Xenophon
said to have an eagle for his ensign; thus using, without know-
ing it, the identical word of the prophet, with only a Greek
termination to it. So exact is the correspondence betwixt the
prophet and the historian, the prediction and the event.” It is
supposed that the Persians adopted the symbol from the ancient
Assyrians, as the Romans afterwards did from them, and as our
own country did from the Romans. There is a large number
of passages in the prophets that are at once plain if this fact be

T H E E A G L E. - 185
kept in mind while reading them; without this in mind, they
are obscure and unintelligible.
The eagle has been chosen as the emblem of our country.
Spirits of forgotten Fourth of July speeches what am I
about to say? What is there to entitle this bird to such an
honor and station Because it is a royal bird? — do we not
reject all royalty Because of its mode of dealing with the
fish-hawk, which we described in a former page? — do we then
desire to live by robbing weaker nations? Because of its un-
sociableness, and love for solitude 2 – do we not boast of our
asylum-arms out-stretched to the oppressed of all lands? Be-
cause it was the Roman emblem 2 – must we then be the imita-
tors of a pagan nation? If we are to become like our emblem,
then we shall have to cease calling ourselves a Christian nation.
If Washington was ever the embodiment of our country's spirit,
nothing could have been more illy chosen as its representative
than the eagle. -
This opinion is not now first announced, though I heartily adopt
it. I shelter myself under great wings. The celebrated American
naturalist, Audubon, after describing the eagle, concludes thus:
“Suffer me, kind reader, to say how much I grieve that it
should have been selected as the emblem of my country. The
opinion of our great Franklin on this subject, as it perfectly
coincides with my own, I shall here present to you. For my
part, says he, in one of his letters, ‘I wish the bald eagle had
not been chosen as the representative of our country. He is a
bird of bad moral character; he does not get his living honestly.
You may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too
lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing-
hawk; and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish,
and is bearing it to its nest for the support of his mate and



- Q 2
186 THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
young ones, the bald eagle pursues him, and takes it from him.
With all this injustice, he is never in good case, but, like those
among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally
poor, and often very lousy. Besides, he is a rank coward: the
little king-bird, not bigger than a sparrow, attacks him boldly,
and drives him out of the district. He is, therefore, by no
means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnatti of
America, who have driven all the king-birds from our country;
though exactly fit for that order of knights which the French
call chevaliers d’industrie.” So it seems our country's emblem
was not chosen without dissent.
The Eagle is very tender and affectionate towards its young;
and it is thus made the emblem of God's tender care for
his people. What beautiful theology, as well as poetry, there is
in the following picture of God's care for Jacob:
“As the eagle stirreth up her nest;
Fluttereth over her young;
Expandeth her plumes, taketh them;
Beareth them upon her wings;
So Jehovah alone did lead him,
And there was no strange God with him.”
Naturalists tell us that the eagle chases its young out of the
nest as soon as they are old enough to fly and provide for them-
selves; she “stirreth up her nest,” by way of reminding them
that they ought to move. Then she “fluttereth over her
young.” Thus, in addition to stirring them up by way of ad-
monition to flight, she also hovers over the nest, in order to
show them an example of flying, that they may see how it is
done, and thus be encouraged to imitate what they see. “When
she sees them indifferent to admonitions, or afraid to follow her
example, she spreadeth abroad her wings; taketh them, and


T H E E A G L E. 187
beareth them upon her wings. Many passages in the writings
of ancient authors countenance the idea, that the eagle actually
takes up her timid young ones, and bears them on her wings
till they venture to fly.” Paxton thinks we need not understand
by the passage that she bears her young through the air to
distant places, but that she aids with her wings their feeble and
imperfect attempts to fly, till, emboldened by her example, and
their own success, they fearlessly commit themselves to the air.
She does not waſ them entirely, so as to dispense with their
own strength and skill, but gently aids them to draw out their
own resources. This conception does not diminish, but it rather
increases the beauty and tenderness of the picture.
We have an account of the conduct of an eagle, by Sir H.
Davy, quoted in the Bridgewater Treatises, which, better than
any thing we have yet seen, illustrates the beautiful passage in
the mystic song of Moses: “I once saw a very interesting sight
above one of the crags of Ben Nevis, as I was going, on the
30th of August, in the pursuit of black game. Two parent
eagles were teaching their offspring, two young birds, the
manoeuvres of flight. They began by rising from the top of a
mountain in the eye of the sun; it was about mid-day, and
bright for this climate. They at first made small circles, and
the young birds imitated them; they paused on their wings,
waiting till they had made their first flight, and then took a
second and larger gyration, always rising towards the sun, and
enlarging their circle of flight, so as to make a gradually-
extending spiral. The young ones still slowly followed, appa-
rently flying better as they mounted; and they continued this
sublime kind of exercise, always rising, till they became mere
points in the air, and the young ones were lost, and afterwards
their parents, to our aching sight. What an instructive lesson,”

188 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
it is added, “to Christian parents does this history read How
powerfully does it excite them to teach their children betimes
to look toward heaven and the Sun of righteousness, and to
elevate their thoughts thither more and more on the wings of
faith and love; themselves all the while going before them,
and encouraging them by their own example.”
Beyond doubt, Goldsmith, who was both poet and naturalist,
had this tenderness and assiduity of the eagle before his mind
when he wrote that beautiful description of a faithful pastor's
care for his flock, in the Deserted Village:
“Thus in his duty prompt, at every call,
He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all:
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.”
º
There is a similar allusion to this tender care of the eagle for
its young in Exodus, through Moses to his people, where God
says: “Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I
bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself.” He,
as a tender parent, supported and trained his feeble children.
This idea has been beautifully paraphrased by an ancient poet.
It is so touching that we cannot resist the temptation of giving -
the original:
“Ac velut alituum princeps, fulvusque tonantis
Armiger, implumes, et adhunc sine robore natos
Sollicita refovet cura, pinquisque ferinae
Indulget pastum: mox ut cum viribus alae
Westicipes crevere, vocat se blandior aura,
Expansa invitat pluma, dorsoque morantes
Excipit, attolitºue humeris, plausugue secundo


T H E E A G L E. 189
Fertur in arva, timens oneri, et tamen impete presso
Remigium tentans alarum, incurvaque pinnis
Vela legens, humiles tranat sub nubibus oras.
Hinc sensim supra alta petit, jam jamque sub astra
Erigiter, cursusque leves citus urget in auras,
Omnia pervolitans late loca, et agmine fºetus
Fertque refertque suos vario, moremdue volandi
Addocet : illi autem, longa assuetudine docti
Paulatim incipiunt pennis se credere coelo
Impavidi: Tantum a teneris valet addere curam.”
We venture to give the sense of this beautiful passage, though
it suffer much by the translation:
How well the tawny chief of birds, whom thundering Jove selects
To bear his armor when in war, his tender young protects!
He cherishes, with anxious heart, his unfledged strengthless brood,
And brings them daily from the chase fat wild meat as their food.
Soon as their downy feathered wings with time increase their strength,
And milder air, and spreading plumes, invite them out at length,
He takes them, timid, on his back, with kind parental care,
And spreads his wings triumphantly across the fields of air;
Though fearing for his burden, his pinions move like oars
Or bending sails, as up from earth toward the clouds he soars–
Still onward, to the deeps above — still on, through rarer skies,
Still on, towards the place of stars, on rapid wing he flies;
And now from place to place he sails, 'mid upper realms of light,
Returning then to earth again, he trains his brood to flight.
Thus, practised by parental skill, their pinions taught to dare,
They learn, with fond and fearless wing, to trust themselves in air.
Such ever are the happy fruits when youth is trained with care.
What a rich lesson is here afforded to parents; yet in how many
families is the tender and touching lesson unheeded ! 0, shall
it be said that birds are wiser and more assiduous toward their


190 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
offspring, training them to dwell in the air, than Christian
parents whose families are to people heaven
Not only in teaching its young to fly, but also in providing
for them as long as they are confined to the nest, does the eagle
manifest great care and concern in supplying them with food.
“Smith, in his History of Kerry, relates that a poor man in
that country got a comfortable subsistence for his family, during
a summer of famine, out of an eagle's nest, by robbing the
eaglets of food, which was plentifully supplied by the old ones.
He protracted their assiduity beyond the usual time, by clipping
the wings, and retarding the flight of the young; and very pro-
bably also, as I have known myself, by so tying them as to
increase their cries, which is always found to increase the
parents' dispatch to procure them provision.” This was a kind
of cruelty and robbery which deserved punishment; and it
would no doubt have been inflicted had the countryman been
caught at the trick by the old eagle. Goldsmith relates a
similar case of robbery, where the thief paid the penalty. A
peasant swam to an island in the Lake Killarney, to rob the
nest of an eagle. Having accomplished his end, and robbed
the nest of its young, he was preparing to swim back, with the
eaglets tied to a string, but while he was yet up to his chin in
the water, the old eagles returned, and missing their young,
they darted down upon the plunderer, and in spite of all his
resistance, they dispatched him with their beaks and talons!
The way of the transgressor is hard; and the old proverb is
generally fulfilled—He that puts himself into danger shall perish
in it. Let the rights of birds be respected, as well as the rights
of men; and as we are above them in the scale of being, let us
use our superior position, not in cruelty and wrong, but in mercy
and goodness.


T H E EAGL E. - 191
The eagle has a wonderful power of swift flight, and of dart.
ing suddenly down like an arrow upon its victims. “The
Italians compare the violent descent of these birds on their
prey to the fall of lead into water, and call them aquila piom-
bina, or the leaden eagle.” This explains such passages as the
following, in Habakkuk :
“They shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat.”
Or this in Jeremiah:
“Behold, he shall come up as clouds,
And his chariot shall be as a whirlwind :
His horses are swifter than eagles.”
Young eagles are exceedingly fond of blood, and the heart
and the eyes of the prey which the old ones destroy. In
harmony with this fact is the representation, in Daniel's vision,
where the eagle-like beast, which came up from the sea, had
“a man's heart given to it.” There is a reference to the same
fact in the Proverbs of Solomon. We commend the fearful
passage especially to all sons and daughters:
“The eye that mocketh at his father,
And despiseth to obey his mother,
The ravens of the valley shall pick it out,
And the young eagles shall eat it.”
In numerous instances has this terrible prophecy been fulfilled
in the history of truant and rebellious sons. It was fulfilled
literally, in many cases, during the late Mexican war. Daring
young men tore themselves from home and parents, amid the
father's protestations and the mother's tears, to lead a life more
free from wholesome restraints, away from their home. They
fell on the plains, some in battle, but many from the horrid


192 T H E B I R D S OF T H E BIBLE.
effects of their own lusts; and, with no friendly hands near to
bury them, they lay exposed, and the ravens of the valley did
pick out their eyes, and the young eagles did make them their
prey. Hundreds whose unburied bones are now whitening on
the plains of Mexico, might have lived in peace and piety in
the midst of those who loved them, had they respected the holy
monitions of affectionate parental hearts.
There is an allusion to the bald eagle in Micah :
“Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children;
Enlarge thy baldness as the eagle.”
Mr. Bruce saw this eagle in Ethiopia. He says: “The crown
of his head is bare or bald; so was the front where the bill and
skull joined.” It has a tuft of hair, like a beard, hanging down
under its chin; and is from this circumstance called, by the
common people, abou duch”, “father long-beard.”
The eagle is pronounced unclean by Moses. It is not classed
among the unclean, as is the case with some others, because of
any filthy habits. It is rather delicate and particular in regard
to its food. “Having slain an animal too large to be eaten at
once,” says Dr. Harris, “it devours or carries off a part; leaving
the remainder for other creatures less delicate; for it never
returns to feed upon the same carcass, neither will it ever devour
carrion. Goldsmith testifies to the same thing. True, there is
a passage in the New Testament which speaks of the eagles
as being gathered together where the carcass is. We will give
it, as a matter of interesting curiosity, from Wickliffe's transla-
tion: “ Thei answerden and seyden to him, where lord? which
seyde to hem, wherever the body shal be, thidur schulen be
gaderid also the eglis.” Weimer, however, with many commen-
tators, thinks the vulture is here meant—a bird which very


T H E E A G L E. 193.
much resembles the eagle, and was by the ancients, as Pliny
and Aristotle, reckoned with eagles. The habits of the vulture -
also agree with the allusion of the passage. When Job says,
“Where the slain are, there is she,”
it is, no doubt, to be understood that the eagle is eager to come
down upon battle-fields to pick out the eyes of the slain, of
which it is exceedingly fond.
Not, therefore, on account of any filthy habits of its own, is
the eagle placed among the abominations of the Mosaic law.
The reason why it is ranked with unclean birds is no doubt to
be found in the fact that it was deified, or at least dedicated to
divine honors in the ancient pagan religion. In an old poem,
1725, this well-known fact is alluded to thus:
“Fyrst the great Eagle, byrde of feigned Jove,
Which Thebanes worshipped and diviners love.”
The eagle lives to a great age. One owned by a gentleman
in Vienna was known to have been one hundred and four years
of age; it is supposed that when they enjoy their freedom they
live longer still. Goldsmith says that they die at last not of old
age, but from the beaks turning inward upon the under mandi-
ble, and thus preventing their taking any food. The great age
to which the eagle is known to live is very beautifully and
forcibly set forth by one of our American poets, Alfred B.
Street:
“Time whirls round his circle, his years roll away,
But the grey forest eagle minds little his sway:
The child spurns its buds for youth's thorn-hidden bloom,
Seeks manhood's bright phantoms, finds age and a tomb;






13 R
194
T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
But the eagle's eye dims not, his wing is unbowed,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud!
The green tiny pine-shrub points up from the moss,
The wren’s foot would cover it, tripping across;
The beach-nut down drooping would crush it beneath,
But 'tis warm'd with heaven's sunshine, and fann’d by its breath;
The seasons fly past it, its head is on high,
Its thick branches challenge each mood of the sky;
On its rough bark the moss a green mantle creates,
And the deer from his antlers the velvet-down grates;
Time withers its roots, it lifts sadly in air
A trunk dry and wasted, a top jagged and bare,
Till it rocks in the soft breeze, and crashes to earth,
Its blown fragments strewing the place of its birth.
The eagle has seen it up-struggling to sight,
He has seen it defying the storm in its might,
Then prostrate, soil-blended, with plants sprouting o'er,
But the grey forest eagle is still as of yore.
His flaming eye dims not, his wing is unbowed,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud!
He has seen from his eyrie the forest below
In bud and in leaf, robed with crimson and snow.
The thickets, deep wolf-lairs, the high crag his throne,
And the shriek of the panther has answered his own.
He has seen the wild red man the lord of the shades,
And the smoke of his wigwam curl thick in the glades;
He has seen the proud forest melt breath-like away,
And the breast of the earth lying bare to the day;
He sees the green meadow-grass hiding the lair,
And his crag-throne spread naked to sun and to air;
And his shriek is now answered, while sweeping along,
By the low of the herd and the husbandman's song;
He has seen the wild red man off-swept by his foes,
And he sees dome and roof where those smokes once arose;


T H E E A G L E. 195
But his flaming eye dims not, his wing is unbow'd,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud 1
The eagle sheds its feathers every spring, at which time it
becomes remarkably weak; but with the growth of its feathers
returns also its strength and vigor, so that even in old age it
assumes all the freshness of youth. This is most beautifully
alluded to by the sacred writers, to show how the Christian is
revived and renewed in body and spirit by the quickening
influences of God's favor, grace, and spirit. Thus beautifully
in Isaiah : -
“He giveth power to the faint;
And to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall:
But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings as eagles;
They shall run, and not be weary;
And they shall walk, and not faint.”
The Psalmist also, when, in the one hundred and third
Psalm, he gratefully celebrates, as is supposed, his recovery from
sickness, alludes to the renovation of the eagle's strength:
“Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all his benefits:
Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;
Who healeth all thy diseases;
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction;
Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies;
who satisfieth thy mouth with good things;
So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”


196 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
We have now, when only here and there along our noble
rivers, among the wildest crags and cliffs of their banks is seen
a pair of eagles, little idea how very numerous they were in
earlier times, before steam navigation commenced. Audubon
says, he saw hundreds along the banks of the Mississippi. They
have fled, like the Indians, their ancient companions, to still
deeper forests towards the going down of the sun; there is no
freedom for them where white men reign.
There is, in the journal of the Rev. Dr. Henry Melchoir
Mühlenberg, who came to this country in 1742, as a Lutheran
missionary, a beautiful and pious allusion to the eagle — which
we quote for this reason, and also because it calls up many inte-
resting feelings of the “olden time” of our yet comparatively
new country. In company with two ministerial brethren, he
visited, in the month of March, a German congregation at Tul-
pehocken, now Berks county, Pennsylvania, then in the wil-
derness of this new world. The next day after their arrival,
he says: “Desiring to breathe fresh and wholesome air, we, in
company with our friends, ascended the mountain; it was three
miles to the top, where we could see for the space of thirty
miles around. The sun shone very pleasantly, serene, and
clear, and the large riven rocks sheltered us from the rough
March winds. Three eagles, which perhaps had their nests
upon the tops of trees which stood upon a fearful height of rocks
above us, sailed over our heads, and in a circle swung themselves
gradually upwards into the clear golden sea of a mild spring
sun, until they seemed only small specks to our gaze. Each
of our hearts and minds were revived and cheered by this
sensible emblem. In Halle, above on the building of the blessed
Orphan House, we had seen the picture, but here the living


T H E E A G L E. 197
reality. This gave us a more vivid impression of those hea-
venly things which in the Holy Scripture are set forth by these
figures. We reminded each other of many blessed Scriptural
sayings and promises associated with eagles; and, turning all
our thoughts and feelings into devout prayer and praise, we
Sung :
“Sei Lob und Ehr' dem hāchsten Gut,”
and thought it would be pleasant here to build tabernacles;
but we were doomed, with much labor, to descend again,
because we were as yet in this world, and in earthly
tents '''
Dr. Rush, in his lectures, relates a thrilling eagle-incident
from revolutionary times, which illustrates the powerful effects
of fear. “During the Revolutionary War, a company of
soldiers were stationed near the highlands of the Hudson
river. A golden eagle had placed her nest in a cleft of the
rocks, half-way between the summit and the river. A soldier
was let down by his companions, suspended by a rope fastened
to his body. When he reached the nest, he suddenly found
himself attacked by the eagle; in self-defence he drew the
only weapon about him, a knife, and made repeated passes
at the bird, when accidentally he struck the rope and cut it
almost off! It began unravelling! Those above hastily
drew him up, and relieved him from his perilous situation
at the moment when he expected to be precipitated to the
bottom. The Doctor stated, that so powerful was the effect of
the fear the soldier had experienced whilst in danger, that ere
three days had elapsed his hair became quite grey !” There
are similar cases on record, illustrating the wonderful influence
which the spirit can exert upon the body.



R 2
198 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
The eagle, of course only in reference to its good qualities,
has been made a Christian emblem in the sacred art of the
church. Who has not seen, in old copies of the Bible, a
picture representing John writing the Book of Revelation,
and an eagle bringing him a quill? There was much of the
eagle in the beloved disciple — there is much especially that
is congenial to it in the grand imagery of the Apocalypse.
There he soars, as on eagles' wings, amid heights which no
mortal eye had before explored. Sanzio Raphael has painted
him reposing upon eagles' wings.
There is much to be learned from this Bird of the Bible.
What a strange combination of virtues and vices—of nobility
and degradation, does its history present! Both are instructive
to the devout and reflective reader. In one thing we may all
safely imitate the eagle: In all our attempts to rise, like it,
may we rise heavenward, having our eyes fixed upon the Sun
of Righteousness, till we bask in its full golden light amid the
glories of the heavenly Jerusalem!
“What is that, mother?—The eagle, my boy?—
Proudly careering his course of joy;
Firm, on his mountain vigor relying,
Breasting the dark storm, the red bolt defying,
His wing on the wind, and his eye on the sun,
He swerves not a hair, but bears onward, right on.
Boy, may the eagle's flight ever be thine;
Onward, and upward, and true to the line!”



T H E EAGL E.
T H E E A G. L. E.
BY J A M E S G. P E R C IV A. L.
Bird of the broad and sweeping wing,
Thy home is high in heaven,
Where wide the storms their banners fling,
And the tempest clouds are driven.
Thy throne is on the mountain top;
Thy fields the boundless air;
And hoary peaks, that proudly prop
The skies, thy dwellings are.
Thou sittest like a thing of light,
Amid the noontide blaze:
The midway sun is clear and bright;
It cannot dim thy gaze.
Thy pinions, to the rushing blast,
O'er the bursting billow spread,
Where the vessel plunges, hurry past
Like an angel of the dead.
Thou art perched aloft on the beetling crag,
And the waves are white below,
And on, with a haste that cannot lag,
They rush in an endless flow.
Again thou hast plumed thy wing for flight
To lands beyond the sea,
And away, like a spirit wreathed in light,
Thou hurriest, wild and free.


THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Thou hurriest over the myriad waves,
And thou leavest them all behind;
Thou sweepest that place of unknown graves,
Fleet as the tempest wind.
When the night-storm gathers dim and dark,
With a shrill and boding scream,
Thou rushest by the foundering bark,
Quick as a passing dream.

Öſt (Dul.
“'Tis middle of the night by the castle clock,
And the owls have awakened the crowing cock;
Tu-whit!—tu-whoo!
And hark, again the crowing cock,
How drowsily it crew.”
“Blue-eyed, strange-voiced, sharp-beaked, ill-omened fowl,
What art thou?”
“What ought I to be – an Owl:
But if I’m such a scare-crow in your eye,
You're a much greater fright in mine—good bye ‘’’
THERE are various species of owl. The horned owl is so called
from a singular formation of feathers on the top of the head
resembling horns. This approaches the eagle kind. There is
also the little screech-owl – so called from its peculiar tone.
Their strange, melancholy, quivering kind of wailing is heard
near the farm-houses in the evening, in the latter part of summer
and autumn; and on clear moonlight nights we can hear them
answering each other in the orchards and fields. The cry of
this bird is considered by peasants the presage of some dire






(201)
202 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
calamity near at hand. Then there is what is called the large
owl, nearly as large as a goose in appearance, though it is really
small as to its body, its bulk being made up of feathers. This
seems to be the owl most frequently referred to in Scripture, as
it not only best answers to the various Scripture allusions, but
is very common in the East, especially in Syria.
All the different kinds of owls have much general resemblance.
They are short, thick, plump birds, with short crooked bills,
large eyes, and a large, round, cat-like head encased in woolly
feathers, out of which looks forth a half-antic, half-philosophic
face, with peculiar calmness and serenity.
In its manners the owl is singularly odd and awkward, espe-
cially when it is found away from home in daytime, which
sometimes happens when it lingers too long in its robbing ex-
cursions. Like all sinners, it hates the light; and when day-
break comes upon it too soon, it finds it impossible to discover
its way back to its gloomy abode. In such a predicament it
lights in the first hedge or thick-leaved tree-top; but often ill-
concealed, it is discovered by the other birds of the place, who
show it neither quarter nor mercy. “The blackbird, the
thrush, the jay, the bunting, and the red-breast, all come in file,
and employ their little arts of insult and abuse. The smallest,
the feeblest, and the most contemptible of this unfortunate bird's
enemies are then the foremost to injure and torment him. They
increase their cries and turbulence round him, flap him with
their wings, and are ready to show their courage to be great, as
they are sensible that their danger is but small. The unfortu-
mate owl, not knowing where to attack, or where to fly, patiently
sits and suffers all their insults. Astonished and dizzy, he only
replies to their insults by awkward and ridiculous gestures, by
turning his head, and rolling his eyes with an air of stupidity.


T H E O W. L. 203
-
It is enough that an owl appears by day, to set the whole grove
into a kind of uproar. Either the aversion all the small birds
have to this animal, or the consciousness of their own security,
makes them pursue him without ceasing, while they encourage
each other, by their mutual cries, to lend assistance in this
laudable undertaking.
“It sometimes happens, however, that the little birds pursue
their insults with the same imprudent zeal with which the owi
himself had pursued his depredations. They hunt him the
whole day until evening returns, which restoring him his facul-
ties of sight once more, he makes the foremost of his pursuers
pay dear for their former sport.” It is a common idea, but a
mistaken one, that the owl sees best in the darkest night. It
sees best in the dusk of the evening, or in a moonlight night.
The Thessalian witch, in the shape of an owl, loved
“To sail in the air
When the moon shone fair.”
The poet Cowper also manifests his correct knowledge of
Natural History in speaking of our bird-as
- “The boding owl,
That hails the rising moon.”
The owl is exceedingly treacherous, and is by profession a
thief. The fact of its seeing best in twilight, or in a moonlight
night, seems to fit it in a peculiar manner to be a depredator.
It lives on its prey, such as mice, rats, birds, and young rabbits.
It is a very voracious bird, gulping down its victim clear and
clean; and after the meat is digested, it ejects the bones, hair,
and feathers through its throat. It is, no doubt, on account of
this indelicate mode of feeding that it is pronounced in Scripture
unclean.

204 THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Its love of rats and mice causes it frequently to take up its
abode in the farmer's barn, or in some congenial nook in one of
the out-buildings, from which it sallies forth in the twilight in
search of vermin. In this way it is often of real service to the
farmer. It is said that a single owl is generally of more service
in destroying domestic vermin, than a dozen of cats. “In the
year 1580," says an old writer, “at Hallowtide, an army of mice
so overran the marshes near Southminster, that they eat up the
grass to the very roots. But at length a great number of strange
painted owls came and devoured all the mice.” The like hap-
pened again, in Essex, about sixty years after. It is a strange
wind, says the old proverb, that does not blow in some one's
favor. So it is a strange bird that is not of some use.
The owl was regarded by the ancients as the bird of wisdom.
It is hard to divine how it ever got this reputation, unless its
keeping up an incessant thinking, and its wonderfully erudite
and philosophic look, should have caused all to bow reverently
before it, and acknowledge its learning, without inquiry:
“The owle demure, who loveth not the lighte,
Ill semblance she of wisdome to the Greeke.”
We admire the words of an old writer, Joseph Hall, upon
our bird, and we quote them entire, as aptly descriptive, beau-
tifully moral, chastely witty, and as fine a specimen of pure
and beautiful English as we have ever read: “What a strange,
melancholie life doth this creature lead; to hide her head all
the day long in an ivy-bush, and at night, when all other birds
are at rest, to fly abroad, and vent her harsh notes. I know not
why the ancients have sacred this bird to wisdom, except it be
for her safe closeness and singular perspicuity; that when other
domestical and airy creatures are blind, she only hath inward

T H E O WL. 205
light, to discern the least objects for her own advantage. Surely
thus much wit they have taught us in her; that he is the wisest
man that would have least to do with the multitude; that no
life is so safe as the obscure; that retiredness, if it have less
comfort, yet has less danger and vexation; lastly, that he is
truly wise who sees by a light of his own, when the rest of the
world sits in an ignorant and confused darkness, unable to ap-
prehend any truth, save by the help of an outward illumination.
“Had this fowl come forth in the daytime, how had all the
little birds flocked wondering about her, to see her uncouth
visage, to hear her untuned notes; she likes her estate never
the worse, but pleaseth herself in her own quiet reservedness;
it is not for a wise man to be much affected with the censures
of the rude and unskilful vulgar, but to hold fast unto his own
well-chosen and well-fixed resolutions; every fool knows what
is wont to be done, but what is best to be done, is known only
to the wise.”
Owls love to inhabit lonely and gloomy places, such as rocky
nooks and clefts, old hollow trees, holes in dilapidated walls, and
the battlements of old, uninhabited castellated towers. Here they
sit all day in silence and solitude, moving only their thick, awk-
ward heads, with an air of mystery, and rolling their large.
goggling eyes when they hear the least noise. The owl has
been, in the imaginations of men in all ages, the genius that
presides over ruins, and it is associated with all that is doleful.
The poets abound in allusions to it as the genius that presides
over the gloomy and awful. Thus, in Shakspeare’s “Mid-summer
Night's Dream:" -
“Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the scritch-owl, scritching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in wo,
In remembrance of a shroud.
S



206 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
“Now it is the time of night,
That the graves all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide.”
Again, the great dramatist makes Lady Macbeth hear the
doleful cry of the owl while the murder is going on : .
“Hark! Peace .
It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bell-man,
Which gives the stern'st good night.”
Then when the murderer rushes in, he exclaims:
“I’ve done the deed — didst thou not hear a noise º
He receives for answer:
“I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry.”
It has been regarded as the prophet of death. No wonder,
when we think of its “hollow hootings, fearful shriekings,
serpent-like hissings, and coffin-maker-like snappings!”
“Harke the deth-owle loude dothe synge,
To the nyghte-mares as theie goe;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gonne to hys deathe-bedde,
All under the wyllowe-tree.”
Chaucer alludes to this bird in the same way in his “Assembly
of Foules:” -
“The owl eke, that of deth the bode bringeth.”
There are few who can hear its hollow, sepulchral, unearthly
tone, in the deep forest, without experiencing some of those
peculiarly troublesome feelings which disturb the bosoms of
most persons when they ride past a grave-yard late at night.


T H E O W. L. 207
It is a feeling known in all ages and lands. Dr. Richardson
relates an instance which illustrates a thousand. “A party of
Scotch Highlanders in the service of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany, happened in a winter journey to encamp after night-fall
in a dense clump of trees, whose dark tops and lofty stems, the
growth of centuries, gave a solemnity to the scene that strongly
tended to excite the superstitious feelings of the Highlanders.
The effect was heightened by the discovery of a tomb, which,
with a natural taste often exhibited by Indians, had been placed
in this secluded spot. Our travellers having finished their
supper, were trimming their fire, preparatory to retiring to rest,
when the slow and dismal notes of the horned owl fell on the
ear with a startling nearness. None of them being acquainted
with the sound, they at once concluded that so unearthly a voice
must be the moaning of the spirit of the departed, whose repose
they supposed they had disturbed, by inadvertently making a
fire of some wood of which the tomb had been constructed.
They passed a tedious night of fear, and, with the dawn of day,
hastily quitted the ill-omened spot.”
Father Kircher, it is said, has set the voices of birds to music,
in which he gives also the various tones of the owl note, which,
we are told, makes “a most tremendous melody.” Nothing can
equal its horrid variations, as they disturb the silent midnight
air in the deep woodland, or around some old forsaken building.
The school-boy or mill-boy, passing along the edge of a forest,
goes faster than before, when he hears from the twilight woods
the ghost-like boo hoo! of the owl. Travellers in the East fre-
quently refer to their cry from out those gray doleful ruins with
which the orient abounds. “As I stood,” says a traveller, “at
the foot of those three majestic columns, which alone are left of
the ancient temple of Cybele, in Sardis, I saw an owl sitting

208 TEI E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
upon the top of a column. One would think it had been created
for the very purpose of singing a dirge over the fall of this city,
when we see it sweep through these solitary halls, and hear its
sorrowful sighs and sobs.”
When they are exercising their doleful powers in some deep
wood, they will answer, when imitated by the human voice.
One of the most beautiful passages in Wordsworth’s “Poems of
the Imagination,” alludes to this fact:
“There was a boy: ye knew him well, ye cliffs
And islands of Winander many a time
At evening, when the earliest stars began
To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, would he stand alone,
Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake;
And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Pressed closely palm to palm, and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as though an instrument,
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,
That they might answer him. —And they would shout
Across the watery vale, and shout again,
Responsive to his call—with quivering peals,
And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud,
Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild
Of mirth and jocund din.”
There is frequent allusion in Scripture to this mournful habit
of the owl. When Micah laments over the idolatry of Israel,
he says, in view of the wrath and ruin which God would send
in consequence of it:
“I will wail and howl,
I will go stripped and naked:
I will make a wailing like the dragons,
And mourning like as the owls.”

T H E O W. L.
So also the Psalmist, when he speaks of his sore troubles:
“By reason of the voice of my groaning,
My bones cleave to my skin.
I am like a pelican of the wilderness,
I am like an owl of the desert.”
In our English translation, the owl is associated, by Isaiah
and Jeremiah, with those doleful birds which they foretell shall
inhabit the ruined glories of Chaldea, Idumea, and Babylon.
Some critics will have some other bird meant, except perhaps
in Isaiah, where the original word, meaning in its root “night,”
designates clearly some kind of owl:
“The screech-owl also shall rest there —
There shall the great owl make her nest,
And lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow.”
How sadly is all this fulfilled . The sound of doleful voices
that proceeds from these desolated cities, now that God has
punished them, is in sad contrast with the merry music of the
harp and tabret which sounded in their luxurious halls when,
in their prosperity and joy, they forgot their God.
It is well, perhaps, that these singular birds have such a taste
for dark and doleful places; for thus, by the wisdom of the
Great Creator, even desolation becomes a delightful home for
part of his creation. In this way no place is destitute of inte-
rest, and all varieties of life are provided for. “There seems to
be no link in nature's chain broken ; nowhere a dead, inactive
repose; but every place, every season, every hour of the day
and night, is bustling with life, and furnishes instances of
industry, self-defence, and invasion.”
We have already said that the habits of the owl have fur-
mished the poets with matter for much song. The most



14 S 2
210 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
beautiful and impressive poem we know, in which the owl is an
actor, is “The Queen of May, her song,” an old poem of which
we know not the author. Not only is the poetry musical, but
the sense is such as when once perceived will scarcely be for-
gotten :
“In the quiet and solemn night,
When the moon is silvery bright,
Then the scritch-owl's eerie cry
Mocks the beauties of the sky.
Tu whit, tu whoo!
Its wild halloo
Doth read a drowsy homily.
From yon old castle's chimneys tall,
The bat on leathern sail doth fall,
In wanton wise to skim the earth,
And flout the mouse that gave it birth.
Tu whit, tu whoo!
Its wild halloo
Hath marr'd the little monster's mirth.
Fond lovers seek the dewy vale
That swimmeth in the moonshine pale;
But maids, beware, when in your ear
The scritch-owl screams so loud and clear,
Tu whit, tu whoo!
Its wild halloo
Doth speak of danger lurking near.
It bids beware of murmured sigh,
Of air-spun oath and wistful eye,
Of star that winks to unconscious flower,
Through the roof of leaf-clad bower.
Tu whit, tu whoo!
That wild halloo
Bids startled virtue own its power!

T H E O WL. 211
We cannot resist the temptation of giving another pretty
poem on this singular bird, which we extract from an old letter
of our friend the Rev. E. E. Higbee. “Once, in my college
days,” he says, “I walked out in an autumn evening, musing
and scarcely knowing whither, until I came to a large black
wood, where I was suddenly startled by the tu-whoo! of an
owl, sitting on an old dead tree just in front of me. I stood
still, and listened over half an hour with exquisite pleasure, and
then returned to my room and wrote the following. The voice
of the owl sounded cheerful to me, rather than sad; hence I
say, “piping thy note so cheerily.”
“Hail to thee, owlſ thou sentinel of night,
That keepest pace with tongueless echo shouting whoo —
And put'st the wanderer to startling fright,
Travelling the dark woods through.
Thou art a quaint old songster, horrid bird,
Piping thy notes so cheerily on that dead tree,
Then listening to know if echo yet has heard,
And will return thy minstrelsie.
Tu-whoo!—sooth, that's a blast of noble sound !
And dost thou hear it rolling through the evening air?
And canst thou mark how woods and hills around,
Thy note of warning bear?
Tu-whoo!—again? sure thou’rt a queer old fowl
To practise here thy song in solitary glee;
Thou must be of thy feathery tribe a stoic owl,
Thou carest little for society.
I love thee since thou dost not boast thy song,
Like birds of day, who only wish they may be heard –
Thou never gabblest with unbridled tongue,
Thou art a modest bird.


THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
But when dim evening comes, thy voice doth swell
Through darkening vale, and far along the moonlit hill,
And echoes on, decreasing through the dell,
Beyond them dies away—and all is still.
Thou art at times a melancholy bird—
When winds go moaning through the leaves of autumn sere,
Thy piercing note of woe has often stirred
An unregarded tear.
I love thee more for this, my chosen one,
That thy brave sturdy heart with tender thoughts can swell; –
But now I leave thee in thy lonely home,
And bid thee, though 'tis hard, a fond farewell.”



( jt stutk.
“Stork, why were human virtues given to thee?
—That human beings might resemble me;
Kind to my offspring, to my partner true,
And duteous to my parents—what are you?”
THESE birds are very numerous in the Holy Land. “The
fields,” says one, “between Cana and Nazareth are covered with
numerous flocks of them, each flock containing more than a
thousand. In some parts the ground is entirely whitened by
them, and, on the wing, they darken the air like a congeries of
clouds. At the approach of evening they retire to roost on the
trees. The inhabitants carefully abstain from hurting them, on
account of their important services in clearing the country of
various animals.” Dr. Shaw saw three flocks of them passing
over Mount Carmel, each of which was half a mile in width,
and they were three hours in going by. They have also been
seen in great numbers between Belbeis and Gaza, in Palestine.
It is an interesting bird in appearance. It is modest and
humble in its deportment. In its general features, though not
at all in its manners and habits, it very much resembles the

(213)
214 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
crane. The stork is white, with some dark brown at its head,
wings, and thighs. It has a very long beak and long red eyes.
The skin, the beak, and the bare parts of the thighs are also
red. “The nails of its toes,” says Dr. Harris, “are very pecu-
liar; not being clawed, like those of other birds, but flat, like
- the nails of a man.”
Its name in Hebrew seems to have been suggested by its dis-
position—it is CHASIDA, and signifies mercy, kindness, goodness,
piety. Its name in English is derived from the Greek storge,
which means “love, tender affection, especially that of parents
for their offspring; parental or filial affection.” All authors
agree in awarding this honor to the stork. Ambrose says the
Romans called it aris pia — the pious bird. Publicus calls it
pietatus cultric — the cherisher of piety.
This sense of its name corresponds exactly with the known
disposition and habits of the stork. Its piety towards its aged
parents is referred to by an old English writer, Holland, who
has it from Pliny. “Storkes keepe one nest still from yearé to
yeare, and never chaunge; and of this kind nature they are,
that the young will keepe and feed their parents when they be
old, as they themselves were by them nourished in the begin-
ning.” -
Beaumont has the following allusion to this fact:
“The stork's an emblem of true piety;
Because, when age has seized and made his dame
Unfit for flight, the grateful young one takes
His mother on his back, provides her food,
Repaying thus her tender care of him
Ere he was fit to fly.”
Burcherodde, a Dane, who, according to the testimony of Sir
John Hill, the eminent naturalist, speaks “without the orna-

T H E S TO R. K. 215
ments or the exaggeration of poetry or ſable,” and who, accord-
ing to his own declaration, “relates what he has seen,” testifies
to this filial tenderness of the stork. After mentioning that
they build in the southern part of Ireland, and that they go
away in autumn, and return again in spring to their several
nests in families, he says: “The people of Toningen, and the
neighboring coasts, gather together to see them come; for they
are superstitious, and form certain presages from the manner of
their flight. At this time it is not uncommon to see several of
the old birds, which are tired and feeble with long flight, sup-
ported at times on the backs of the young; and the peasant
speaks of it as a certainty, that many of these are, when
they return to their homes, laid carefully in the old nest, and
cherished by the young ones which they reared with so much
care the spring before.” This is certainly very remarkable; and
well may this writer add, “men may be taught by looking at
them.”
This tender care on the part of the young to their parents is
only a suitable return for the previous care of the parents for
them. We are assured, by naturalists, that the stork bestows
special care upon the education of its young. While they are
yet in the nest, the parents never both leave it at a time; one
always remains with the young, while the other goes for food.
They retain their offspring in the nest much longer than other
birds. “When they first take out the young, they practise
them to fly; and they lead them to the marshes and to the
hedge sides, pointing them out the frogs, and serpents, and
lizards, which are their proper food; and they seek out toads,
which they never eat, and take great pains to make the young
distinguish them,” teaching them thus to select that food which
is proper for them, and which they might easily mistake, on

216 T H E BIRD S () F THE BIBLE.
account of the similarity between a toad and a frog. When
night closes their excursion for food, they bring their little flock
carefully back to the nest.
It is said that when the young first begin to flutter out of the
nest, the mother bears them on her wings, and so zealously pro-
tects them in danger that, in some instances, they have perished
themselves rather than desert their offspring.
How interesting and instructive is this mutual devotion
between the old and young of these birds! How beautiful and
suggestive is this grateful return of services on the part of the
young In regard to it, we may adopt the sentiment of the
Danish writer above quoted, with the alteration of the first
word: “Children may be taught by looking at them.” Though
such a thing is not found among storks, yet it is among men,
that aged parents are neglected by those over whom they
watched with many pains and tears in their infancy. A little
impatience manifested in those who are now in their second
childhood, is regarded as a burden too grievous to be borne,
while all, of a similar character, extending through years of
our own first childhood, is forgotten. How easily are past
favors forgotten among us — but not among storks
The stork is easily tamed; and, though it has somewhat of
a grave, and even mournful visage, it is, nevertheless, a very
friendly bird. It is neither shy nor savage, but mild and
courteous in its disposition. It may be easily trained to
reside in the yard or in the garden, which it keeps clear of
insects and reptiles. In some countries they are a very
favorite domestic fowl. “They are so common in Holland as
to build anywhere on the tops of houses, where the inhabitants
provide boxes for them to make their nests in, and are careful
that the birds suffer no injury, always resenting this as an


T H E S TO RR. 217
offence committed against themselves. Storks are also common
at Aleppo, and in plenty at Seville, in Spain. At Bagdad,
hundreds are said to be seen about the houses, walls, and
trees.”
As domestic fowls, they are very fond of children, even
joining in their childish frolics, and imitating them. Dr.
Herman tells us “that he saw a tame one in a garden where
the children were playing at ‘hide-and-seek, and that it ran its
turn when it was touched, and so well distinguished the child
whose turn it was to pursue the rest, as to be perfectly on its
guard.”
The Stork is a migratory bird. Those in Europe and Asia in
autumn sail for Egypt, Libya, the marshes of Barbary, and the
southern regions in general, where they bear a second brood,
and enjoy a second summer. The mode of their flying is thus
described by Milton:
“Part loosely wing the region, part, more wise,
In common, ranged in figure, wedge their way,
Intelligent of seasons, and sets forth
Their airy caravan, high over seas
Flying, and over lands, with mutual wing,
Easing their flight.”
There is something peculiar in the mode of their setting
out on their aerial journey. “For about the space of a
fortnight before they pass from one country to another,"
says Dr. Shaw, “they constantly resort together, from all the
adjacent parts, in a certain plain; and there forming them-
selves, once every day, into a dow-wanne, or council, according
to the phrase of these eastern nations, are said to determine
T


218 THE BIRDs of THE BIBLE.
the exact time of their departure, and the place of their future
abodes.” To this Thomson, the poet of the Seasons, thus
alludes:
“The stork assembly meets; for many a day
Consulting deep and various, ere they take
Their arduous voyage through the liquid sky.
And now their route designed, their leaders chose,
Their tribes adjusted, clean'd their vigorous wings,
And many a circle, many a short essay,
Wheel'd round, in congregation full
The figured flight ascends; and riding high
The aerial billows, mixes with the clouds.”
This habit of the stork is a wonderful provision of a kind
Providence, and is so alluded to by Pope:
“Who bids the stork, Columbus-like, explore
Heavens not its own, and worlds unknown before;
Who calls the council, states the certain day,
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?
When all the preliminaries are arranged, they start away in
the night. A certain writer, Bellonius, says, that when they
are preparing to start away, the tardy stork that comes last to
the place of general rendezvous is killed upon the spot, as a
warning to loiterers! They go away about the last of August,
and return about the middle of March.
They are very sensitive, and easily anticipate the least change
of the season which adumbrates the coming winter. This ex-
plains the allusion in Scripture:

T H E S TO R. K.
“Yea, the stork in the Heaven
Knoweth her appointed time.”
They know by mere instinct, even better than sinners with
reason, when to move, so as to escape approaching danger.
“We have alreadie seene,” says an old writer (Holinshed's
Conquest of Ireland), “the storks and swallows, as also the
summer birds are come, and with the westerlie winds are gone
againe !” This promptness of the stork to migrate at the
proper time has given rise in the East to some very pointed
sayings, of which we may say again, “Men may be taught by
looking at them.”
Storks manifest great conjugal fidelity; and when they have
once paired, they cherish each other with the utmost attention
and faithfulness to the end of life. “ Husbands may be
taught by looking at them.” Roberts informs us that if
a husband is fond of roving from his house, and remaining
too long in other places, his wife says, “The storks know
their time and place, but my husband does not know.” Again:
“In the rain neither roker nor other birds will depart from
their nestlings; but my husband is always leaving us.” In
regard to an unworthy son, the parent says, “Ah my wicked
son would that he, as the stork, knew his appointed time and
place"
When they leave for warmer climates, they fly very high
and very fast. This may explain the expression, “the
stork in the heaven.” Also the allusion to the two mystical
women in Zachariah, who “ had wings like the wings of a
stork.”
Where they are in a tame state, as we have seen, they
generally build upon the tops of houses. They also, in some


















220 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
places, build in the ruins of old walls or forsaken buildings, or
deserted towers. A traveller tells us, that “at Persepolis, or
Chilmanar, in Persia, the remains of the pillars serve them to
build on, every pillar having a nest on it.” In Palestine, how-
ever, where the roofs of the houses were flat, they built their
nests on high trees, and prefer the fir-tree:
“As for the stork,
The fir-trees are her house.”
This bird exercises great prudence in the selection of a place
for its nest, and in its entire construction. Paxton says:
“The stork chooses the site of her dwelling with much care
and intelligence; she combines her materials with great art,
and prosecutes her plan with surprising exactness. After the
structure is finished, she examines it on all sides, tries its
firmness and solidity, supplies any defect she may discover,
and, with admirable industry, reduces with her bill an un-
sightly projection, or ill-adjusted twig, till it perfectly cor-
responds with her instinctive conception of safety, neatness,
and comfort.” When the nest is once finished, it is its home,
not only for the whole season, or for a part of it, as is the case
with most of birds, but year after year it returns to the same
nest, as to its house.
No doubt because of its many pious qualities the ancients
associated the mystic with this bird. They were so much
venerated by the ancient Thessalonians, that he who killed a
stork had to expiate the crime by his own death! The Mahom-
medans account it profane to kill, or even to molest a stork.
And, among the Turks, those who own a house where storks


T H E S TO R. K. 221
have nested, are supposed to receive great blessings from
heaven, and to be free from misfortune.
Here we must close. We have formed a kind of friendship
with this amiable Bird of the Bible, and our heart lingers as
we are about to bid it adieu. We believe verily, they are true,
those beautiful and peculiar words of Coleridge, in the Ancient
Mariner:
“He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man, and bird, and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small: -
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”
T H E G O O D S TO R. K.
“I praise thee, good stork, from my heart;
Thou art such a true pious bird;
My spirit within me is stirred,
To practise thy good-being art.
So true to thine offspring when young–
Good food for thy nurslings to bring:
To bear them, when weak, on thy wing,
And die to protect them from wrong!
So kind to thy parents when old-
By them in their dotage to stand
As taught in the holy command:
To thy praise, pious stork, be it told.

T 2
THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
So true to thy partner in life—
Faithful and firm to the last:
Your fortunes together are cast,
To love on as husband and wife.
I praise thee, good stork, from my heart;
Thou bearest a pious, good name.
And it is not a mere empty fame;
For truly a good bird thou art.”

Öſt Cut Intuit.
“The hote cormeraunt, ful of glotony.”
THE Cormorant is a sea-bird. It is said to be about three feet
four inches in length, and four feet two inches in breadth, from
the tips of its wings when they are extended. Its bill is
straight until near the end, where the upper chap bends into a
hook, and is about five inches long, of a dusky color; the base
of the lower mandible is covered with a naked yellowish skin,
which extends under the throat, and forms a kind of pouch.
“It may be distinguished from all other birds of this kind by
its four toes being united together by membranes, and by the
middle of the toe being toothed or notched, like a saw, to assist
it in holding its fishy prey. Its head and neck are of a sooty
blackness, and the body thick and heavy, more inclining in
figure to that of the goose than the gull.”
The Cormorant is placed by Moses among the unclean birds,
and is mentioned as such in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. It is
gloomy, voracious, and filthy in its habits of life. It is a great
bird for prey and plunder. It is fond of fish, which it gorges
down with the most astonishing gluttony; and it has a very





























(223)
224 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
speedy digestion, which keeps it forever craving for more. On
account of its gross appetite, it has a rank and disgusting smell,
and is said to be, in its ordinary and healthful state, more foetid
than carrion. It is, no doubt, on this account that it is pro-
nounced unclean :
“The glutton cormorante, of sullen moode,
Regardyng no distinction in his foode.”
In our English translation, this bird is also mentioned in
Isaiah and Zephaniah as inhabiting ruins, in connection with
such gloomy birds as the owl and bittern. Most of the com-
mentators are, however, of opinion that the pelican is the bird
designated by the original in these passages.
It is in every way an unpleasant bird. “Its food,” says an
ingenious writer, “is disagreeable; its voice is hoarse and
croaking; and all its qualities obscene. No wonder, then,
that Milton should make Satan personate this bird when he
sent him upon the basest purposes, to survey with pain the
beauties of Paradise, and to sit devising death upon the tree
of life:
‘Up he flew, and on the tree of life—
The middle tree, and highest there that grew,
Sat like a cormorant–sat devising death
To them that lived.”
It has been remarked, indeed, of our poet, that the making a
water-fowl perch on a tree implied no great acquaintance with
the history of nature. But in vindication of Milton, it must
be observed, that Aristotle expressly says the cormorant is
the only water-fowl that sits on trees; so that our epic bard
seems to have been as deeply versed in natural history as in
- .

T H E CORM O R. A. N. T. 225
criticism.” Modern naturalists know that it builds its nest in
the cliffs of rocks, and also on trees.
The cormorant was regarded as a bird of ill-omen among
the ancient Druids. Wordsworth very beautifully represents
one as flying round their priests while engaged in the rites of
their worship, portending the downfall of their system, to make
way for the “tidings of Jesus crucified.” Here is the beautiful
sonnet : -
“Screams round the Arch-Druid's brow the sea-mew white
As Menai's foam; and tow'rd the mystic ring
Where Augurs stand the future questioning,
Slowly the Cormorant aims her heavy flight,
Portending ruin to each baleful rite,
That, in the lapse of ages, hath crept o'er
Diluvian truths, and patriarchal lore.
Haughty the Bard;—can these meek doctrines blight
His transports? wither his heroic strains?
But all shall be fulfilled; – the Julian spear
A way first opened; and, with Roman chains,
The tidings come of Jesus crucified;
They come – they spread — the weak, the suffering hear,
Receive the faith, and in the hope abide.”
The cormorant is still known in the East. Among some
ancient nations it was tamed, and employed by them as a fisher,
at which business it is very expert. It fishes not only in fresh
water, but also in the depths of the ocean, and this in the
night as well as in the light of day.
Faber has given us a description of the manner in which this
bird fishes when tamed for that purpose: “When they carry
them out of the rooms where they are kept, to the fish-pools,
they hoodwink them, that they may not be frightened by the
way. When they are come to the rivers, they take off their



15
226 T H E B L R D S OF THE BIBLE.
hoods; and having tied a leather thong round the lower part of
their necks, that they may not swallow down the fish they catch,
they throw them into the river. They presently dive under
the water, and there, for a long time, with wonderful swiftness,
pursue the fish; and, when they have caught them, rise to the
top of the water, and, pressing the fish lightly with their bills,
swallow them; till each bird has, after this manner, devoured
five or six fishes. Then their keepers call them to the fist, to
which they readily fly, and one after another vomit up their
fish, a little bruised by the first nip given in catching them.
When they have done fishing, setting the birds on some high
place, they loose the string from their necks, leaving the passage
to the stomach free and open, and, for their reward, they throw
them part of their prey—to each, one or two fishes, which they
will catch most dexterously, as they are falling in the air.”
The cormorant is thus still employed as a fisher by the
Chinese. “It is very pleasant,” says one, “to behold with what
sagacity they portion out the lake or the canal where they are
upon duty. When they have found their prey, they seize it
with their beak by the middle, and carry it without fail to their
master. When the fish is too large, they give each other mutual
assistance; one seizes it by the head, the other by the tail, and
in this manner carry it to the boat together. They have always,
while they fish, a string fastened round their throats, to prevent
them from devouring their prey.”
It is said that formerly in England cormorants were also thus
employed—perhaps as a matter of amusement merely—among
the higher classes. “As late as the reign of Charles I., there
was an officer of the household who bore the title of Master of
the Cormorants.”
Beyond doubt, this civic dignitary, invested with this “little


T H E CORM O R. A. N. T. 227
brief authority," duly appreciated his importance!—feeling that
for the honor of the state which he represented, and to secure
proper reverence for his office in the eyes of all inferiors, he was
now required to assume a more mysterious look, to improve his
perpendicular position, and to give a shorter answer to all who
asked him any questions ! No doubt many of the “lower
orders” passed him with hearts full of silent consideration,
curving their path graciously round him, looking over and up
with feelings of humble and profound dependence, and whisper-
ing, with fingers to their lips, as they passed on : “The Master
of the Cormorants ſº
This bird has no virtues which commend it, except it be that
it consents to be employed as a catcher of fish—rendering itself
in this way useful to men. Its gluttony, and its filthy habits,
unite in making it an object of disgust. As a Bird of the Bible,
it must be regarded in the same light with those corrupt and
wicked men whose portraitures are drawn upon the sacred page,
in order to exhibit to us the hatefulness of sin, that thereby we
may be the more strongly induced to hate and avoid it. Good
birds, like good men, we exhibit as examples for imitation; but
bad birds, like bad men, as a warning. As we would say, be
not like Judas, but like John; so we say, be like the stork, but
not like the cormorant.
We cannot fail to admire the divine wisdom which the sacred
writers manifest in holding up before us, upon almost every page,
good and evil in confrast with each other. In this way, the evil
seems to us more evil, and the good more good; and though the
process is so silent in its operations as not to be perceived by us,
yet we are sure that far more than we can imagine of the mould-
ing influence which the Bible exerts upon human character, is to
be attributed to this fact. It serves to make up the atmosphere

228 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
of the world of divine truth, which, like the air around us, in
a physical point of view, is health to our moral nature when
we breathe it, though it be so subtle in its activities as to be
beyond our power of perception. Not among the least of mys-
teries is that very interesting and solemn mystery—silent
influenceſ
* Stillest streams
Oft water fairest meadows; and the bird
That flutters least is longest on the wing.”

Újt ſutluſ.
“Why art thou always welcome, lonely bird?
—The heart grows young again when I am heard;
Nor in my double note the magic lies,
But in the fields and woods, the streams and skies!”
It has been doubted, by some critics, whether the bird known
as the Cuckoo can claim the honor of being one of the Birds of
the Bible. It is mentioned by Moses as one of the unclean
birds, under the Hebrew name sacapſ, translated in our English
Bible, cuckoo.
Bochart conjectures that the sea-mew or gullis intended. The
vulgate also translates it carum, which designates this bird.
The objection to this is, that it is placed, by the Hebrew legis-
lator, among birds of the air, and not among water birds. It
is also placed among birds of prey, to which the sea-mew does
not belong.
Dr. Shaw thinks it is the Rhaad, or safsaſ. To this it is
properly objected, that this bird is granivorous, and cannot
therefore be ranked among unclean birds, while the one men-
tioned by Moses is unclean. Calmet, though he inclines to the
U (229)

230 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
opinion of Dr. Shaw, says, in concluding his remarks on the
subject: “We confess we see no reason for the exclusion of this
bird by Moses.”
Geddes supposes the horn-owl to be the bird intended; but
there are three species of owl already mentioned in the context,
the “ owl,” the “little owl,” and the “great owl.”
Upon a careful examination of the subject, we can see no
reason for preferring either of these birds suggested; and indeed
the learned critics themselves seem at a loss to give anything
beyond the suggestion, on the contrary, acknowledge the diffi-
culties which lie in the way of adopting either of the birds
mentioned. They fail also, so far as we have seen, to ignore the
claims of the cuckoo to occupy the place assigned it by our
translators. We must be excused from joining in the crusade
against this bird, until better arguments are brought to disin-
herit it. Let not even a bird be disfranchised, until it is clearly
proved that it has no right to sit among those birds whose honor
it is to have their names written by the pen of inspiration.
With due respect to those great names to which we have
referred, we cannot help thinking, that at least some critics on
the Bible aim much more zealously to show their own great
sense, than they do at exhibiting the Scripture's true sense.
We have not only failed to see adequate reason for changing
the common English translation, but we see many reasons for
sustaining it. Luther translates it kukuk, cuckoo. The Zurich
version translates it cuculus, cuckoo. In Barker's Bible, 1615,
it is translated sea-mew, but with a marginal note which says,
“ or cuckowe.” Schuechzer, who, in 1732 published in German
a Natural History of the Bible, in four large volumes, illustrated
by 750 plates, gives a picture of the cuckoo in connection with
this word.


T H E C U C K O O. 231
The Cuckoo is also a bird well known in the East. It
abounds in the Morea and the Grecian archipelago. It has
been seen by travellers at Smyrna; “it is spread over a great
part of Asia, and has been found in Japan and Java.” In pro-
fane history, mythology, and ancient fable, the cuckoo bears a
prominent part.
Broderip favors our English translation. He justly says:
“The disputed word, it will be observed, stands between the
might-crow or night-hawk, and the hawk — the owl being ante-
cedent to the night-hawk in this catalogue of unclean birds.
Now it was one of the old legends that the cuckoo, at a certain
period, was turned into a hawk; and the evidence generally
appears to be in favor of the version at present in use.” True,
the idea that it changes its nature with the season, so that it
becomes a sparrow-hawk, must be regarded as a ſable; yet it
shows that the sense of the past has coupled this bird with
others, in a way similar to what is done by the Hebrew
lawgiver.
More than all, there is that about this bird which properly
assigns it a place among the prohibited birds of the Jewish law.
It is a bird of prey. This is now well established. Reaumur,
who with much pains reared several, and carefully studied its
habits and tastes, found that it would not feed upon bread and
seeds, but that flesh, insects, and worms were its favorite food.
It has been seen hawking for dragon-flies over ponds; and
Hunter says that the cuckoo, at certain seasons, lives on cater-
pillars.
The cuckoo is also given to gluttony. “Indeed,” says Gold-
smith, “their gluttony is not to be wondered at, when we con-
sider the capacity of their stomach, which is enormous, and
reaches from the breast-bone to the vent.” This, its gluttonous



232 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
habit, is of itself sufficient reason for placing it among birds
unclean.
The cuckoo is described by naturalists as somewhat less in
size than a pigeon, shaped like a magpie, and distinguished from
all birds by its round prominent nostrils. Its head, neck, back,
and wing-coverts are of a dove color. The breast and body are
white, crossed with wavy lines of black. The throat is a pale
grey. It has ten feathers in its tail; the two middle ones are
black, with white tips, the others dusky. Its legs are yellow,
and its claws white. The plumage of the young cuckoo is
chiefly brown.
The cuckoo, like many other birds, derives its name from its
note. It is known, in one or other of its species, in our own
country. It is familiarly called, in many places, the cow-bird;
in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the farmers call it the
rain-crow.
It is a migratory bird; coming to us in April, and departing
again in August and September. It has been observed that its
voice changes as the summer advances, till at length, in the
latter end of June, it is scarcely heard beyond a faint “gowk.”
Aristotle has noticed the failure of its song before it leaves the
country. There is much correct cuckoo-history in the following
old English lines:
“In April,
Come he will.
In flow'ry May
He sings all day,
In leafy June
He changes his tune,
In bright July
He's ready to fly,
In August
Go he must.”



T H E C U C K O O. 233
The most singular habit of this bird has not yet been
noticed. “The female cuckoo, in general, makes no nest of
her own; though she has been known to rear her own young.
But usually she repairs for that purpose to the nest of some
other bird, generally the water-wagtail or hedge-sparrow, and
having devoured the eggs of the owner, lays her egg in the
place. She usually lays but one, which is speckled, and of the
size of a black-bird's. This the fond, foolish bird hatches with
great assiduity, and when it breaks the shell, finds no difference
in the great ill-looking changeling from her own. To supply
this voracious creature, the credulous nurse toils with unusual
labor, no way sensible that she is feeding up an enemy to her
race, and one of the most destructive robbers of her future
progeny. -
Sometimes the cuckoo permits the eggs of the bird into whose
nest it lays its own, to remain. In this case the young cuckoo,
it is said, in the absence of the nurse, ejects the true heirs from
the nest—some say he slyly devours them, and at last, when he
is full grown, serves even the nurse in the same way! It is
known that he remains in the nest for weeks after he might
seek his own food, and by piteous cries, causes the more food to
be brought him Being exceedingly voracious, he sometimes
even succeeds in enlisting the sympathies of other birds besides
the one that hatched him, inducing them, by impressive signs,
and cries of hunger and distress, to bring him food Alas, for
our bird Not without reason does an old poet call him
“Obscene intruder in her neighbor's place.”
In many respects the cuckoo must be ranked with the most
interesting of birds. It is said to be the surest herald of spring.
The nursery-song is founded on truth:

U 2
234 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIB L E.
“The cuckoo is a fine bird,
He sings as he flies,
He brings us good tidings,
He tells us no lies.
He sucks little birds' eg
To make his voice clear,
And when he sings ‘cuckoo,”
The summer is near.
It is called “the husbandman's time-keeper,” indicating to him
how the season moves. “Hesiod tells us, that when the song
of the cuckoo was heard among the oak-leaves, it was late for
ploughing, though there was still good time, if it rained inces-
santly three days and three nights; and wo to the ancient
Italian vine-dresser whom the voice of the cuckoo surprised
before he had finished pruning his vines. Hence the irritating
mockery with which the wayfarer, loudly imitating the notes
of the bird, assailed the husbandman as he cultivated his vine-
yard, taunting him with his sloth.” Goldsmith, speaking of the
certain dependence which the farmer may put in the announce-
ments of the cuckoo, says, “these feathered guides come to us
heaven-taught, and point out the true commencement of the
season.” He regards them as truer and surer prophets of the
season than the calendar:
“The merry cuckowe, messenger of spring,
His trumpet shrill hath thrice already sounded:
That warns all louers waite upon their king,
Who now is comming forth with girland crowned.”
So sings Spencer. Thomson also, in his Seasons, refers to the
song of this bird as the first sure note of spring:

T H E CU C K O O.
“Lend me your songs, ye nightingales:
While I deduce
From the first note the cuckoo sings
The symphony of spring.” -
There is a very ancient ballad—indeed it is said, by the best
judges, to be the oldest in the English language extant—called
the Cuckoo Song, which we here give both for its age and its
beautiful simplicity:
“Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu;
Groweth sed and bloweth med,
And springth the rode nu.
Sing cuccu.
Awe beteth after lamb,
Lhouth after calvé eu,
Bulluc sterteth,
Bucke verteth,
Merie sing cuccu:
Cuccu, cuccu.
Wel singes thu cuccu,
Ne swik thu naver nu.”
As this spelling, and the obsolete words used obscure the sense,
we give the following, in modern English, from Broderip:
“Summer is come in,
Loud sings the cuckoo;
The seed grows and the mead is in flower,
And the wood springs (or shoots) now.
Sing cuckoo.
The ewe bleats after the lamb,
The cow lows after the calf,
The bullock starts,
The buck verts (goes to harbor in the fern),






T H E B L R D S OF THE BIBLE.
Merrily sings the cuckoo
Cuckoo, cuckoo;
Well singest thou cuckoo,
Mayest thou never cease.”
The voice of the cuckoo is peculiar. There is something in
it which touches the emotional in us, and awakens an associa-
tion of ideas like the coo of the dove, pleasant and mournful.
“Its note,” says one, “seldom occurs to the memory without
reminding us of the sweets of summer;” and, we may add, of
times and friends departed. With all its uniformity, and even
monotony of note, like those old German chorals which our
fathers and mothers sung, and which we heard in our childhood,
it weaves its song into our memories, never to be forgotten, and
never to be heard again without deep emotion. Chaucer alludes
to the note of the cuckoo as sad, calls it “the sorry bird,” and
addresses it thus: -
“Yeve sorrow on thee, and on thy leud vois,
Full little joy have I now of thy cry.”
Ancient fable has not overlooked our bird, and the father of
the gods himself assumed its form, in which to introduce him-
self to Juno. We have also an account of its disputing with
the nightingale its claims to the highest power of song. Chaucer
has given us a beautiful poetical account of this contest, in his
poem of “The Cuckoo and the Nightingale.” We give a
specimen, which will be found quite honorable to our bird, as it
shows by far the greatest amount of modesty, the strongest
reasons, and the most good nature. The nightingale meeting it
in the grove, addresses it rather dictatorially thus:


T H E C U C K O O. 237
To
“Now, good cuckow, go somewhere away,
And let us that can singen dwellen here,
For every wight escheweth thee to here,
Thy songs be so elenge, in good ſay.”
which the cuckoo meekly but forcibly replies.
“What may the aylen now?
It thinketh me I sing as well as thou,
For my song is both true and plaine,
And though I cannot crackell so in vaine,
As thou dost in thy throte, I wot never how.
And every wight may understand mee,
But, nightingale, so may they not done thee,
For thou hast many a nice queint cry,
And I have thee heard saine, ocy, ocy,
How might I know what that should be?”
The nightingale goes on to explain, that by his “ocy” he means
that all should “be shamefully yslaine” who say aught against
love: thus uncharitably reflecting upon the cuckoo. Our bird,
in answer, undertakes to make some severe strictures upon love,
in which it plainly reproves that sickly, sentimental passion
which its rival regarded as the height of pure love. Whereupon
both nightingale and poet turn against it in wrath and rage,
thus proving that neither knew the nature of true love. The
poet himself confesses his most uncharitable conduct thus:
“I stert anon,
And to the broke I ran and gat a ston,
And at the Cuckow hertely I cast:
And he for drede flie away full fast,
And glad was I when that he was gon.”
When the cuckoo sings or chants in the marsh, thicket, or
orchard, one is singularly puzzled to guess where the voice comes
from, how near or how far offitis, and whether on this side or that.

238 T H E B I R D S OF THE BIBLE.
This, and the peculiar effect which its note produces upon the
listener, referred to in a preceding page, Wordsworth has
beautifully embodied and expressed in his touching poem on
the Cuckoo:
“O blithe new-comer I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
0 cuckoo ! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?
While I am lying on the grass
Thy two-fold shout I hear,
That seems to fill the whole air's space,
As loud far off as near.
Though babbling only to the vale,
Of sunshine and of flowers,
| Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.
Thrice welcome, darling of the spring !
Even yet thou art to me
No Bird: but an invisible Thing,
A voice, a mystery;
The same who in my school-boy days
- I listened to : that cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.
To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen.
And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.


T H E C U C K O O. 239
o blessed Bird: the earth we page
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, faery place;
That is fit home for thee!”
The ancients have not failed to associate many mystic and
mysterious powers and virtues with the cuckoo. Pliny says
that when it is wrapped in the skin of a hare, and applied to a
patient, it will cause him to sleep. Its ashes were regarded as
a sovereign remedy for disorders of the stomach. It was also
said to furnish a specific against the bite of a mad dog. The
Romans imagined that the very sound of its voice, when accom-
panied by certain ceremonies, had the power of producing
domestic comfort. It was, moreover, firmly believed that if
any one, when he heard its note for the first time in the spring,
took the earth upon which his foot rested at the time, “not a
flea would be batched wherever that earth was scattered.” As
to matters of love, wo unto the wight who heard the nightingale -
before he had heard the cuckoo ! Thus Chaucer tells us,
“Lovers had a tokening,
And among them it was a commune tale
That it were good to here the nightingale
Rather than the leud cuckow sing.”
These fancies have passed away with the age and generations
in the midst of which they reigned. If we are wiser now, let
us be thankful, and not forget that being wiser without being
better will only increase our condemnation in the end. Let us
be thankful especially for that pure Christianity, of the exist-
ence and truth of which all superstition is a sure prophecy;
and while the uncertain moonlight of error is waning, let us hail
with joy the Sun of Righteousness—the true light of the world.
Now, farewell, cuckoo! With our memories of thee we will
associate the coming of an eternal spring


















T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
TO THE CU C K OO
“Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove!
Thou messenger of spring
Now heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome sing.
What time the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear;
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?
Delightful visitant with thee
I hail the time of flowers,
And hear the sound of music sweet
From birds among the bowers.
The school-boy, wandering through the wood
To pluck the primrose gay,
Starts the new voice of spring to hear,
And imitates thy lay.
What time the pea puts on the bloom,
Thou fliest thy vocal vale,
An annual quest in other lands,
Another spring to hail.
Sweet birdſ thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year !
0 could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
We'd make, with joyful wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the spring.


d it iſ trull.
“Stock still upon that stone, from day to day,
I see thee watch the river for thy prey.
– Yes, I'm the tyrant there; but when I rise,
The well-trained falcon braves me in the skies;
Then comes the tug of war, of strength and skill;
He dies impaled on my updarted bill;
Or powerless in his grasp, my doom I meet;
Dropped as a trophy at his master's feet.”
THE Heron is a bird of singular appearance, whether sitting,
standing, or on the wing. It is light in proportion to its bulk,
weighing only from three to four pounds, though it is able to
extend its wings five feet from tip to tip. Its bill is about five
inches long; it has also long sharp claws, toothed like a saw,
that it may the better hold fast its slippery prey. When it
stands waiting for its prey, it gives a singular curve to its neck,
erects its body, draws its wings down and forward, while its
head is almost between the top of its wings, resting entirely
upon its shrugged shoulders, looking somewhat like a little
stoop-shouldered man, drawing his head down, and his cloak
16 V. - (241)


242 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
up, to shelter himself against the cold. In general, it presents
a kind of timorous, indolent, and irresponsible appearance.
The Hebrew word ANAPHAH designates the bird which, in our
English translation, is denominated Heron. “A wide latitude
has been taken,” we read in Calmet, “in the rendering of the
Hebrew word; some critics interpreting it of the crane, others
of the curlew; some of the kite, others of the woodcock; some
of the peacock, some of the parrot, and some of the falcon.
But let not the reader be alarmed at this diversity of rendering,
since it is the necessary consequence of the scantiness of refer-
ences to the bird in the sacred text, and the absence of all
description of its character and qualities, in those passages in
which it is spoken of The truth is, it is only referred to in the
catalogue of birds prohibited by the Mosaic code, and it is only
from the import of its name, or the known character of the
birds with which it is grouped, that we can form any opinion
of its specific character. That the creature intended is some
species of water-bird, there can be little doubt, if we give the
sacred writer any credit for propriety in his grouping, or system
in his arrangement.”
It will be found, however, we think, that a little close inves-
tigation will afford another evidence of the great accuracy which
characterizes the work of the learned and pious translators of
the Bible into English, by convincing us that they have given
us the true bird intended by the original. The word in its root,
we are told, “signifies to breathe short through the nostrils, to
snuff, as in anger; hence, to be angry.” Now it is known that
the heron is a very irritable bird. This is of great weight,
when we consider how frequently the Hebrew names are derived
from some prominent characteristic of the creature named.
Moreover, the bird designated by the name heron is placed



T H E H E R O N. 243
among those unclean and prohibited in the Jewish law. This
also confirms us in the belief that the right name has been given
to this bird by our translators. The heron has about it all
those traits and qualities which fit it for a place in this
catalogue.
It is a bird of prey. On account of its destructive habits it -
has been called the fresh-water tyrant. It is a terror to all
frogs, lizards, reptiles, and fishes. There is scarce a fish so large
that it will not strike at and wound, even though it be unable
to carry it away. Of all other birds, says Goldsmith, this
commits the greatest devastation in fresh water. He wades
into the water as far as he can, and there patiently awaits his
victim, and when he discovers one near enough, he darts
upon it with inevitable aim. In this way, it is said, he
destroys more fish in a week than another in three
months.
The heron is not only very destructive as a bird of prey, but
he is also an enormous glutton. “I have seen a heron,” says
Willoughby, “that had been shot, that had sixteen carps in him
at once, which he will digest in six or seven hours, and then go
to fishing again. I have seen a carp taken out of a heron nine
inches and a half long. Several gentlemen who kept tame
herons, to try what quantity one of them would eat in a day,
have put several smaller roach and dace in a tub, and they
have found him eat fifty in a day, one day with another. In
this manner a single heron will destroy fifteen thousand
carp in half a year.” What unparalleled epicurianism is
this
Goldsmith says of this bird: “In general, he is seen taking
his gloomy stand by the lake's side, as if meditating mischieſ—

244 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
motionless and gorged with plunder. His usual attitude on
this occasion is to sink his long neck between his shoulders,
and keep his head turned on one side, as if eyeing the pool
more intently. When the call of hunger returns, the toil of
an hour or two is generally sufficient to fill his capacious
stomach, and he retires long before night to his retreat in the
woods. Early in the morning, however, he is seen assiduous
at his usual occupation.” Thus he lives to eat; and all his
labors and cares arise from and centre in his stomach. It is
easy to see the propriety of prohibiting as unclean the flesh of
a bird that lives on such prey, and at such a rate. How admi-
rably has an old poet, in a list of unclean birds, drawn the
portrait of the heron :
“And the still Herne, arresting fishes meeke.”
What is the strangest of all is, that notwithstanding the
extraordinary quantity of food which he devours, he is always
lean and emaciated. It is as if, for his wantonness, his food
were cursed to him; for, though his crop is usually found full,
he is so poor that his flesh is scarce sufficient to cover his bones.
This is the case even in times of plenty; but when, in cold
and stormy seasons, his prey disappears, and he has nothing to
depend upon but the weeds that grow upon the water, he
becomes pitifully meagre and consumptive in his appearance;
“so that the wanton glutton spends his time between want and
riot, and feels alternately the extremes of famine and excess."
What a lesson of reproof do the habits of this unclean bird
read to a certain class of beings belonging to a higher order of
creation, though scarcely higher in their modes and manners of
life .

T H E H E R O N. 245
With all these unprepossessing features of his character,
the heron is not without some interest. Goldsmith tells us
that in England they often build in groves not far from
residences, and become favorites of the owners, who gladly
tolerate them. “It is certain, that by their cries, their expan-
sive wings, their bulk and wavy motion, they add no small
solemnity to the forest, and give a pleasing variety to a finished
improvement.” It is said that they generally live long, and
sometimes attain to more than half a century.
Goldsmith tells us that the Heron was once highly valued
among the higher classes in England. “It was once the
amusement of the great to pursue this timorous creature with
the falcon; and heron-hawking was so favorite a diversion
among our ancestors, that laws were enacted for the preserva-
tion of the species; and the person who destroyed their eggs,
was liable to a penalty of twenty shillings for each offence.”
Now, since this amusement has been cast aside, and the more
useful habit of having and stocking fish-ponds has gotten into
vogue, the heron, as if to draw credits on an old debt, calls
upon the fish-pools of gentlemen, and, unasked, helps himself to
such a portion as his appetite demands. We suppose a law
offering a reward for the destruction of their eggs would now
be regarded a blessing to the great. Thus do circumstances
alter cases—and thus may things be done or not, just as it suits
the caprice and convenience of those who have the greatest
amount of influence with the law-making power. This is not
the case with the Mosaic law — there the use of the bird for
food is prohibited upon principles which remain in force in all
ages and in all places. The nature of the bird, and not the
caprices of men, gives occasion for the law.




































V 2
T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
B II: D S OF PREY PRO H II IT ED IN T H E LAW.
When birds of prey are by the Lord forbid,
And not to Israel allowed as food :
Methinks there are in this wise lessons hid,
By them, at least in part, well understood.
The Lord would teach them thus to dread and hate
The spoiler, and the preying life he leads;
Lest they, by loving him, should in their hearts create,
By fondness for the spoiler, hankering for his deeds.
And as the Lord designed they should pursue
The husbandman's and shepherd's quiet way,
By wise restraints of law. He thus their tastes withdrew,
From barbarous and uncertain wanderings after prey.
And thus did Israel learn to love the quiet vales,
Where fruits and flocks their honest labors blest.
In healthful toil, 'mid scenes of rural peace,
They lived devout on earth, and sought in Heaven their rest.

d it julture.
“Abominable harpies! spare the dead.
—We only clear the field which man hath spread:
On whom should heaven its hottest vengeance rain 7
You slay the living, we but strip the slain.”
THE Vulture abounds in Arabia, Egypt, and in many parts
of Africa and Asia; and is known also, in one or other of its
species, in our own country. What is known in the Middle
and Southern States as the turkey-buzzard, is a species of
vulture. The different kinds of vultures, though they vary
considerably both in their size and color, are nevertheless very
similar in their dispositions and habits.
The Vulture is as large as the largest eagle, measuring two
feet and a half in length, and more than twice that much in
the expanse of its wings. Jackson says that, excepting the
ostrich, the vulture is the largest bird in Africa. Its head is
bare, and the greater part of its head and neck are of the color
of raw flesh, without down or feathers. “The throat is covered
with blackish hairs, and the lower part of the neck behind with
a kind of a ruff of crisped and curled feathers of the same

(247)
248 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
color, within which the bird withdraws his head while in a state
of repose, especially after feeding; an attitude which is common
to most of the vultures. The whole under surface is white,
with an occasional tinge of flesh color. The back and tail
coverts are of a bright fawn, which becomes lighter and lighter
as the bird advances in age; and the quill-feathers of the wings
and tail, together with the large coverts of the former, are glossy
black.”
Mr. Gould gives us a description of the habits of the vulture
from Le Valliant. “This is a bird of the mountains; the
sheltered retreats formed by their caves and fissures constituting
its proper habitation. In them it passes the night, and reposes
after it has sated its appetite during the day. At sunrise, large
bands are seen perched on the rocks at the entrance of their
abodes, and sometimes a continued chain of mountain exhibits
them dispersed throughout the greater part of its extent.
Their tails are always worn down by friction against the
stones between which they thrust themselves, or on which
they perch.”
Though when they are on the ground, especially when they
are gorged with food, they find considerable difficulty in rising:
yet when they are once fairly in the air, they exhibit a sublime
and magnificent flight, rising by circles, till they become mere
specks to the eye, and at length disappear entirely from
sight.
In their food they are exceedingly filthy, feeding on carcasses.
Goldsmith remarks: “In Egypt this bird seems to be of singular
service. There are great flocks of them in the neighborhood
of Grand Cairo, which no person is permitted to destroy. The
service they render the inhabitants is the devouring all the car-
rion and filth of that great city, which might otherwise corrupt


THE vultur E. 249
and putreſy the air. They are commonly seen with the wild
dogs of the country, tearing a carcass, very deliberately, toge-
ther. This odd association produces no quarrels; the birds and
quadrupeds seem to live amicably, and nothing but harmony
subsists between them. The wonder is still the greater, as both
are extremely rapacious, and both lean and bony to a very great
degree.” In our own country, in the Southern States, the
American vulture is also protected by a law, which imposes a
fine upon those who wilfully kill it.
The vulture is a harmless and peaceable bird, never laying
hold of any living prey; on this account, as well as by reason
of their usefulness, there is very little disposition to harm or
disturb them. Nor are they shy, like the hawk or the eagle.
Farmers in the Middle States, who reside in the shadow of
mountains, going forth to their labor early on a summer
morning frequently see, very near them, large flocks of
the American vulture, sitting upon the dry limbs of large
trees, spreading out their glossy wings to the rising sun.
They are gluttons to an extent that is truly astonishing.
“When once they have found a carcass, if not molested, they
will remain in the place till the whole is devoured. At such
times they eat so immoderately, that frequently they are
incapable of rising, and may be caught without difficulty.”
But even in this condition it is not safe to attempt their cap-
ture. They have a strong defence, to which they readily resort;
it is to disgorge, the offensive odor of which no one can endure
We need no further reason why, in the Mosaic law, it is
placed among birds prohibited and unclean:
“The vulture, void of delicace and feare,
Who spareth not the pale dede man to teare.”


250 THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
This last line alludes to the belief of the ancients that vultures
are exceedingly fond of human flesh; and that hence they
sometimes disinter buried bodies to devour them. For this
reason also, they were regarded as birds of ill-omen.
The ancients represent that vultures were especially fond of
the human liver. Homer tells us that Tityus the giant, as a
punishment for a crime, had two vultures feeding upon his
liver while alive, which was reproduced as fast as it was
devoured
“There also Tityus on the ground I saw
Extended, offspring of the glorious earth;
Nine acres he o’erspread, and, at his side
Stationed, two vultures on his liver preyed,
Scooping his entrails; nor his hands were free
To chace them thence.”
The vulture lays but two eggs in a year. They build their
nests along lofty precipices, on the top and in the clefts of high
rocks, and in dreary parts of mountains. It is, consequently,
very seldom that their nests are found. They may often be
seen in the morning sunning themselves upon high bare rocks;
and from these places they sally forth to seek their prey. In
this position poets have represented them as overlooking battle-
fields, waiting for a feast on the bodies of the slain:
“And on some rugged peak
The black-winged vulture's beak
With shrill rejoicing his proud flesh shall tear !”
This bird is also associated with those which the prophet
Isaiah foresaw should inhabit and prey amid the lonely
desolations of Idumea:



T H E W ULTURE.
“There shall the vultures also be gathered,
Every one with her mate.”
It was anciently believed that vultures are possessed of
extraordinary acuteness of smell, and that it is by this means
they so readily discover their favorite food. This is still a
popular belief. Modern naturalists, however, have proved, by
satisfactory experiments, that this is an error. “The experi-
ments instituted upon vultures,” says Audubon, “show that
not only are they not led to their prey by the sense of smell,
but also that they are not made sensible by it of the presence
of food when in their immediate proximity.” This fact has
been discovered also by the Indians, and is well known among
them. If it be asked, how then do they so directly discover the
existence of a carcass, it is answered, they are gifted with
extreme sharpness of sight. It is known that the ancients had
discovered this. The word Roah, translated vulture in
Deuteronomy, signifies seeing. It is said, also, that the vul-
ture, in the hieroglyphics of Egypt, signifies sharpness of sight.
This fact will explain the passage in Job:
“There is a path which no fowl knoweth,
And which the vulture's eye hath not seen.”
º
If their superior sight is not alone sufficient to account for
the readiness with which they find their food, there are other
known facts which, combined with this, will fully explain it.
The following interesting passage is fully satisfactory. “Desi-
rous of observing how so great a number of vultures could
congregate together in so short a space of time, I concealed
myself one day in a thicket, after having killed a large gazelle,



252 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
which I left upon the spot. In an instant a number of ravens
made their appearance, fluttering about the animal, and making
a great croaking. In less than half a quarter of an hour, these
birds were reinforced by the arrival of kites and buzzards; and
immediately afterwards I perceived, on raising my head, a
flight of birds at a prodigious height, wheeling round and round
in their descent. These I soon recognized to be vultures, which
seemed, if I may so express myself, to escape from a cavern in
the sky. The first comers fell immediately upon the gazelle,
but I did not allow them to tear it in pieces. I left my conceal-
ment, and they betook themselves slowly and heavily to flight,
rejoining their comrades, whose numbers continued to increase.
They seemed almost to precipitate themselves from the clouds
to share the spoil, but my presence caused them speedily to dis-
appear.
“Thus it is, then, that the vultures are called upon to partici-
pate in their prey; the first carnivorous birds that discover the
carcass rouse the others which may happen to be in the
environs, by their cries and motions. If the nearest vulture
does not spy the prey from the lofty region of the air in which
he swims, by means of his wide-spread wings, he perceives the
subaltern and more terrestrial birds of prey preparing to take
possession of it; but perhaps he has himself sufficient power
of vision to enable him to discover it. He descends hastily,
and with a wheeling flight, and his fall directs the other
vultures who witness his evolutions, and who, no doubt, have
their instinct sharpened with regard to everything that con-
cerns their food. A concourse of carnivorous birds speedily
takes place in the neighborhood of the carcass, sufficient to
attract the vultures of the whole district; nearly in the same
manner as the disturbance created by a number of men along


T H E V ULTURE. 253
the streets of a crowded town attracts the whole population to
follow in their train.”
Bochart represents the vulture as very tender and affectionate
to its young. He says: “We know from Horus Apollo that
the she-vulture was sacred to Isis, and adorned the statue of
the goddess; that it was the emblem of parental affection; and
that it was the hieroglyphic for an affectionate mother.” He
farther says: “This female vulture, having hatched her young
ones, continues with them one hundred and twenty days,
providing them with all necessaries; and when the stock of
food fails them, she tears off the fleshy parts of her thigh, and
feeds them with that, and the blood which flows from the
wound !" This is similar to what was attributed, by the
ancients, to the pelican : namely, that in great extremities
it pierces its own breast to feed its offspring with the
blood.
As we are about to close this brief chapter on the vulture,
we only begin to feel, upon a review, how much of our child-
hood comes back to us with this bird. Though unacquainted
with that larger species which is known in the east and south,
we are perfectly familiar with those which Audubon calls turkey-
vultures. Often have we seen them sitting upon the peaks of
rocks along the brow of the mountain, and upon the limbs of
dead trees in the vicinity of a carcass, or hurrying around it
with “a clumsy sort of hopping canter.” Often have we
watched them, in vast numbers, sailing and circling high in
the serene summer air, still higher and more distant, until they
seemed to the strained eye but as a thin swarm of bees. Often
too, in our boyhood, did we climb along the fearful rocks where
they roost and make their nests, in search of those large black
feathers or quills which sometimes fall from their wings, and
W.


254 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
regarded one in our hands, on the way to school, as a trophy
to be proud of. One of these quills, cut into an excellent pen,
I now hold in my hand, and with it I have written all that has
here been said concerning this Bird of the Bible.
We conclude this sketch of the vulture with a very graphic
and beautiful little poem, by our friend the Rev. T. C. Porter,
Professor of Natural Science in Franklin and Marshall College;
at the same time taking this opportunity of acknowledging our
indebtedness to him for valuable suggestions made during the
preparation of this work.
T H E W ULTURE.
High on a rocky peak,
Jagged and scarred by thunder,
The solitary vulture sits with whetted beak
Gazing far under,
Over the desolate plain that lies beneath.
His cold eye glistens in the setting sun,
Watching until the fight be lost and won,
And silence reigns upon the field of death.
Prophet of evil! bird of omen, foul!
Unstained by living blood,
Corruption is thy food;
How man abhors thee, horrid ghoul!
And yet thou art a minister of God
To rid the world of pestilence and taint;
Thou sparest both the sinner and the saint
Under the sod.
But the glad day will dawn, when death shall die
And life be clothed with immortality;
Then thou, with all thy troop, shalt take thy flight
Into the realm of everlasting night.


Újt filift.
“The smallest fouls dradd foe, the coward Kite.”
THE Kite is a bird of prey; and on that account is mentioned
in the law of Moses as unclean and prohibited. It is a species
of hawk; and, as there are various species of this bird, the law-
giver includes them all when he says, “the kite after his kind.”
The Hebrew word AJAH means to cry or clamor. May it
not have derived its name from the effect which its appearance,
as a bird of prey, produces upon the smaller birds of the grove,
which, whenever they discover it, send forth cries of terror and
fear, flying in all directions for their safety.
In the Naturalist's Library we have the following description
of this bird. “The Kite is distinguished by his forked tail
and slow-sailing flight, in which he seems perpetually on the
wing. He is larger than the common buzzard, which is about
twenty inches in length, and four feet and a half in breadth,
when measured across the expansion of the wings. He has
large eyes, yellow legs and feet, and black talons. The head
and back are of a pale ash hue, which is varied, across the

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256 THE BIRDs of Til I, Bibi, E.
shafts of the feathers, by longitudinal lines. His neck is red-
dish; the feathers covering the inside of the wings are red, with
black spots in the centre; and the lesser rows of the wing
feathers are party-colored black, red, and white.” -
His habits of life are such as to rank him very properly
among birds unclean. “He lives only upon accidental carnage,
as almost every bird of the air is able to make good his retreat
against him. He may be, therefore, considered as an insidious
thief, who only prowls about, and, when he finds a small bird
wounded, or a young chicken strayed too far from the mother,
instantly seizes the hour of calamity, and, like a famished
glutton, is sure to show no mercy. His hunger, indeed, often
urges him to acts of seeming desperation. We have seen one
of them fly round and round for a while to mark a cluster of
chickens, and then on a sudden dart like lightning upon the
unresisting little animal, and carry it of the hen in vain crying
out, and the boys hooting and casting stones to scare it from
its plunder. For this reason, of all birds, the kite is the good
housewife's greatest tormentor and aversion.”
It was above intimated, that the kite, to a good extent,
secures his food by watching his chances. In this respect he
very much resembles a certain class of human beings, who
enrich themselves by seizing the opportunities of making specu-
lation out of the ignorance, strife, or misfortune of others. The
observant Chaucer has not forgotten to weave this fact into his
* Knight's Tale:”
“We strive, as did the houndes for the bone,
They fought all day, and yet hir part was none.
Ther came a kyte, while that they were so wrothe,
And bare away the bone betwix hem bothe."
T H E K IT. E. 257
Spenser, in his “ Faërie Queene,” alludes to the well-known
fact, that though he very much desires it, the kite is not able
to take any of the smaller birds in a fair chase:
“The foolish kite, led with licentious will,
Doth beat upon the gentle bird in vaine,
With many idle stoups her troubling still.”
As birds generally elude the aim and pursuit of the kite, he
satisfies his ambition by the capture of less agile animals. He
consequently feeds pretty extensively upon lizards, small ser-
pents, beetles, locusts, and different kinds of larger worms. For
this business he is well suited, being gifted with a quick and
keen eye.
The kite builds its nest upon the tops of the tallest trees;
and in the south selects for this purpose, with preference, the
magnolias and white oaks, which grow tall and splendid. “The
nest,” says Audubon, “resembles that of the dilapidated tene-
ment of the common American crow, and is formed of sticks
slightly put together, along with branches of Spanish moss,
pieces of vine bark, and dried leaves.”
It lays two and three globular eggs, of a light greenish tint,
blotched thickly over with deep chocolate brown and black. The
parents are said to manifest a very peculiar attachment to their
young, feeding them with the utmost diligence; and, when
danger threatens their nest, take them up and bear them away
to secure their safety. Audubon, finding a nest near the Missis-
sippi, upon a tree, hired a negro, who had been a sailor, to
climb it and bring down its contents. He first mounted an
adjoining tree, and having attained some height, crossed over
on the branches to the oak upon which the nest was located.
“No sooner had he reached the trunk of the tree on which the
17 W. 2

258 THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE,
nest was placed, than the male was seen hovering about and
over it in evident displeasure, screaming and sweeping towards
the intruder the higher he advanced. When he attained the
branch on which the nest was, the female left her charge, and
the pair, infuriated at his daring, flew with such velocity, and
passed so close to him, that I expected every moment to see
him struck by them.”
The same naturalist tells us, that on one occasion he saw a
mother-kite feeding her young upon a limb, and shot at them
both ! “The mother flew in silence, sailed over head long
enough to afford me time to reload, returned, and to my great
surprise gently lifted her young, and sailing with it to another
tree, about thirty yards distant, deposited it there. My feelings
at that moment I cannot express. I wished I had not discovered
the poor bird; for who could have witnessed without emotion
so striking an example of that affection which none but a
mother can feel; so daring an act, performed in the midst of
smoke, in the presence of a dreaded and dangerous enemy! I
followed, however, and brought both to the ground at one shot,
so keen is the desire of possession"
The good man did it sadly—yet still he did it. As he seems
penitent, we will not now read him a lesson on “man’s inhu-
manity” to birds. He wished to draw and describe the bird for
the benefit of science; and thus his love of knowledge rose
higher than his love of charity. The poor birds became martyrs
to science. It is a question of animal ethics, into which we
cannot now enter; yet we know at once how the matter strikes
us, when we conceive the idea of beings above us coming down
to inquire into the human constitution and economy, and putting
us to death in order to enable them to “draw and describe" us
for the advantage of the higher science.


T H E K IT. E. 259
We must do the above naturalist the justice of giving his own
view of the fatal shot, and the effect which the result produced
upon his mind. “I deposited the two birds under a log, whence
I intended to remove them on my return, for the purpose of
drawing and describing them. I then proceeded on my excur-
sion to a lake a few miles distant. On coming back, what was
my mortification when I found that some quadruped had
devoured both ! My punishment was merited.”
We conclude with some lines from Cowper, which are full
of poetry, good reasoning, and sound sense, and which may
safely be commended to the earnest consideration of all:
“I would not enter on my list of friends—
Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, -
Yet wanting sensibility — the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarned,
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight,
And charged, perhaps, with venom, that intrudes,
A visitor unwelcome, into scenes
Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove,
The chamber, or refectory, may die:
A necessary act incurs no blame.
Not so when, held within their proper bounds,
And guiltless of offence, they range the air,
Or take their pastime in the spacious field:
There they are privileged; and he that hunts
Or harms them there, is guilty of a wrong,
Disturbs the economy of Nature's realm, |
Who, when she formed, designed them an abode. -


260
THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
The sum is this. If man's convenience, health,
Or safety interfere, his rights and claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.
Else they are all—the meanest things that are —
As free to live, and to enjoy that life,
As God was free to form them at the first,
Who in his sovereign wisdom made them all.
Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons
To love it too.”

d it iſ ſuitſ.
“The crested Lapwynge, wailing shrill arounde,
Solicitous, with no contentment blest.”
SoME will have it that the word DUKIPHAH, a name which
Moses assigns to a certain unclean bird, and which is translated
Lapwing, designates the bird known as hoopoe. We fail to
find any reason whatever for such an opinion. Nor do we find
anything in the nature and habits of the Lapwing which does
not correspond with the supposition that it is the bird intended
by the Hebrew lawgiver.
These birds are known in most parts of Europe, as far north-
ward as Iceland. In the winter they are to be seen in different
parts of Persia and Egypt. In the north of England they are
called pewits or tewits, from their particular cry. They gene-
rally go together in flocks; when they are disturbed they utter
a hundred different screams, and in flying they make a great
noise with their wings.
The Lapwing is about the size of a common pigeon, and is
covered with very thick plumes, which are black at the roots,
- (261)







262 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
but of different color on the outward parts. The feathers on
the body, thighs, and under the wings, are most of them white
as snow. The back is of a dark green, glossed with blue
shades. “Its beak,” says another, “is long, black, thin, and a
little hooked; its legs grey and short. On its head is a tuft of
feathers of different colors, which it raises or lowers as it
pleases.” -
The Lapwing lives principally on worms. “Sometimes they
may be seen in flocks nearly covering the low, marshy grounds
in search of these, which they draw with great dexterity from
their holes. When the bird meets with one of those little
clusters of pellets, or rolls of earth that are thrown out by the
worm's perforations, it first gently removes the mould from
the mouth of the hole, then strikes the ground at the side with
its foot, and attentively awaits the issue; alarmed by the
shock, the reptile emerges from its retreat, and is instantly
seized. In the evening they adopt another mode. They run
along the grass, and feel with their feet the worms which the
dampness of the atmosphere has brought forth.”
These birds build their nests of dry grass upon the ground
near some marsh, or on some island where men seldom resort.
The female lays two eggs, which are olive-colored, and spotted
with black. The young are hatched in three weeks; they are
covered with a thick down, and are able to run almost as soon
as they come forth from the shell.
It is said that the parents manifest the fondest affection for
their young, resorting to singular and interesting stratagems to
avert approaching danger from them, whether in the shape of
men or dogs. “When she perceives enemies approaching, she
never waits till they arrive at her nest, but boldly runs to meet
them. When she has come as near them as she dares to ven-



T H E L AP W IN G. 263
ture, she then rises with a loud screaming before them, seeming
as if she was just flushed from hatching; while she is then
probably a hundred yards from the nest. Thus she flies with
great clamor and anxiety, whining and screaming round the
invaders, striking at them with her wings, and fluttering as if
she were wounded. To add to the deceit, she appears still
more clamorous as more remote from the nest. If she sees them
very near, she then seems to be quite unconcerned, and her
cries cease, while her terrors are really augmented. If there
be dogs, she flies heavily at a little distance before them, as if
maimed; still vociferous and still bold, but never offering to
move toward the quarter where her treasure is deposited. The
dog pursues, in hope every moment of seizing the parent, and
by this means actually loses the young; for the cunning bird,
when she has thus drawn him off to a proper distance, then
puts forth her power, and leaves her astonished pursuer to gaze
at the rapidity of her flight.”
The success with which the lapwing plays the ruse for the
safety of herself and young, has not escaped the notice of the
poets:
“The lapwinge hath a piteous, mournful cry,
And sings a sorrowful and heavy song.
But she is full of craft and subtilty,
And weepest most being farthest from her young.”
Chaucer designates our bird thus:
“The false lapwing, full of treacherie.”
This bird is easily tamed; and it is said to become uncom-
monly familiar and confiding after it is properly domesticated.
A Grecian fable will have it that Tereus, King of Thrace,
by way of punishment for a shameful crime, was changed into
a lapwing. Thus Virgil, in his sixth Pastoral:



264 THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
“Changed into a lapwing by the avenging god,
He made the barren waste his lone abode,
And oft on soaring pinions hovered o'er
The lofty palace, then his own no more.”
We may venture the opinion, that iſ, at the present day, all
who are guilty of the same crime were changed in the same
way, there would be no scarcity of lapwings, especially in most
of our larger cities.
d it ºitterſ.
“Along thy glades, a solitary guest,
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest.”
THE word KEPHUD, translated Bittern, occurs three times in
the Bible. It has been variously rendered by the learned; some
owl, some osprey, some porcupine, some bustard, and some even
otter. Gesenius is in favor of the hedgehog. Shaw, Lowth,
Dodson, and Stock, following Bochart, make it porcupine. Dr.
Harris, we think, quite satisfactorily opposes them, thus: “I
see no propriety in ranking the porcupine with the cormorant,
and the raven, and the owl; but the Bittern, which is a retired
bird, is more likely to be found in their company in the same
wilds and ſens. Besides, the porcupine is not an aquatic
animal: and pools of water are pointed out as the retreat of
those here mentioned; neither has it any note—yet of these
creatures it is said, their voices shall sing in the windows.”
Calmet, who favors the porcupine, still honestly acknowledges,
at the close of his article, that he does it “with some reluct.
ance, as this is not precisely the creature that, on principles of
X (265)


266 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
arrangement, seems to answer the requisitions of every place in
the Scripture.” Both the Chaldee and the Talmud, are in favor
of the Bittern, as it is in the English translation.
The meaning of the word in its root is, “to draw together,
contract, shrink,” which applies, to say the least, as well to the
Bittern as to any one of the birds or quadrupeds proposed. “It
is,” says Goldsmith, “a retired, timorous animal, concealing
itself in the midst of reeds and marshy places.” Thus it gathers
itself up, and shrinks from view into tufts of grass and weeds,
and may well have had its name originally suggested from this
fact. We think an exhibition of the nature and habits of
this bird will satisfy the reader that there is no occasion for a
new translation of the word.
The Bittern is a bird of the heron kind, though it is not so
large as a heron, being only about four inches in length, and
has a weaker bill. It is of a pale yellow color, spotted and
barred with black. It is plump and fleshy in its appear-
ance.
Being a timorous and retired bird, it lives principally along
the sedgy margin of streams, where it builds its nest amid tufts
and rushes, using as material, flags, the leaves of water plants,
and dry rushes. It lays generally seven or eight eggs, of an
ash-green color. Three days after the young issue from the
shell, they are already capable of being led forth after food. It
feeds on frogs and insects—when this kind of food is not to be
obtained, it lives on such various vegetables as it can find in
marshy places and along streams. -
The Bittern is found in various parts of the world. It has
in all ages been known along the rivers of the East; it has
always been especially abundant on the borders of the renowned
old Nile:
T H E BITT E R N. 267
“Thou king of rivers, o'er whose glassy breast
The budding lotus nods with graceful pride
In all the colors of the rainbow drest,
Roll in sad murmurs: on thy swelling tide
No more the navies of a Pharaoh ride;
No more thy sparkling waters kiss the vest
Of royal damsel, but unhonored glide,
Whilst on thy shores the bittern builds her nest,
Where erst the ibis dwelt, a favored, sacred guest.”
Very consistently with its known habits does Isaiah assign
it a habitation amid the desolations of Babylon, in connection
with pools of water:
“I will also make it a possession for the bittern,
And pools of water.”
This may be well understood of those “garden-canals, forming
part of the pleasure-grounds; fed, no doubt, originally from
the river; and long after the destruction, or rather the aban-
doning, of the city, retaining moisture enough to support
vegetables,” and thus making a congenial abode for the doleful
bittern.
When we consider its small size, there is, perhaps, no bird
whose note is so remarkably loud; besides, its voice differs from
all other birds in its terrifying hideousness and awful solemnity.
“Those who have walked in an evening along the sedgy sides
of unfrequented rivers, must remember a variety of notes from
different water-fowl; the loud scream of the wild-goose, the
croaking of the milliard, the whining of the lapwing, and the
tremulous neighing of the jacksnipe. But of all these sounds,
there is none so dismally hollow as the booming of the bittern.
It is not possible for words to give those who have not heard
this evening call an adequate idea of its solemnity. It is like

268 THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
the uninterrupted bellowing of a bull, but hollower and louder,
and is heard at a mile's distance, as if issuing from some for-
midable being that resided at the bottom of the waters. Its
windpipe is fitted to produce the sound for which it is remark-
able; the lower part of it dividing into the lungs, is supplied
with a loose membrane that can be filled with a large body of
air, and exploded at pleasure. These bellowing explosions are
chiefly heard from the beginning of spring to the end of autumn;
and however awful they may seem to us, they are the calls of
courtship, or the expressions of connubial felicity.”
In some countries the bittern is held in great detestation
among the ignorant. Its dreadful boomings are heard as the
ominous voice of doom! “I remember,” says Goldsmith, “in
the place where I was a boy, with what terror this bird's note
affected the whole village. They considered it as the presage
of some sad event; and generally found, or made one to succeed
it. I do not speak ludicrously; but if any person in the neigh-
borhood died, they supposed it could not be otherwise, for the
night-raven had foretold it; but if nobody happened to die, the
death of a cow or a sheep gave completion to the prophecy.”
It was once supposed that such sounds could not possibly be
produced by so small a bird, and that it must have
recourse to some external instruments or helps. The peasants
believed formerly, and do still in some parts of the world, that
it thrusts its bill into a reed, that serves as a pipe to swell the
note beyond its natural and unaided capacity. It was also
imagined by some that it produces these wonderful booming
sounds by putting its head under water, and then violently
blowing. Thomson the poet adopted this idea.
The quaint old poet Chaucer, in “The Wiſ of Bathe's Tale,"
showeth, not only that he believed in this respect as Thomson

T H E BITT E R N. -
269
did after him, but also that he had firm faith in the old slander,
that women cannot keep secrets! The whole tale is so full of
good old instructive sense, that we must give it entire, not so
much for the sake of the bittern, as for the benefit of the reader
— and among the readers, not so much for those who can keep
secrets, as for those who find it difficult to restrain the impulses
of that kind of communicative benevolence which is not always
a blessing either to those who receive it or to those who give :
“Ovide, amonges other thinges smale,
Said, Mida had under his longe heres,
Growing upon his hed two asses' eres;
The whiche vice he hid, as he beste might,
Ful subtilly from every manne's sight,
That save his wif, ther wist of it no mo;
He loved hire most, and trusted hire also;
He praied hire, that no creature
She n'olde tellen of his disfigure.
She swore him, nay, for all the world to winne,
She n'olde do that villanie, ne sinne,
To make hire husbond han so foule a name;
She n'olde not tell it for hire owen shame.
But mathless hire thoughte that she dide,
That she so longe should a conseil hide;
Hire thoughte it swal so sore about hire herte,
That nedely some word hire must asterte;
And sith she dorst not telle it to no man,
Down to a mareis faste by she ran,
Till she came ther, hir herte was a-fire:
And as a bittore bumbleth in the mire,
She laid hire mouth unto the water doun.
* Bewrey me not, thou water, with thy soun,
Quod she, to thee I tell it, and no mo,
Min husbond hath longe asses' eres two—


X 2
270 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Now is min herte all hole, now is it out,
I might no longer kepe it out of dout.”
Now hear the poet’s zealous moralizing application of the story,
which even uncourteously he maketh the woman's own mouth
to speak!
“Here we may see, though we a time abide,
Yet out it moste, we can no conseil hide.”
Although it require us still further to extend this digression,
yet, in justice to the sex against whom this ungracious charge
is brought, we must yet remark, that Chaucer belonged to the
14th century; and even though this weakness may have cha-
racterized the sex in that age, it does not necessarily follow
that it may now still have the same application.
But to return to our bird. It is now, and has been, hereto-
fore, well known that the bittern does not resort to any such
helps as have been imagined, in order to make those astonishing
sounds, but that it produces them in a perfectly natural way.
In the language of an old writer: “That a bittor maketh that
mugient noyse, or, as we term it, bumping, by putting its bill
into a reed, as most believe, or as Bellonius and Aldrovandus
conceive, by putting the same in water or mud, and after a
while restraining the ayr by suddenly excluding it again, is not
so easily made out.” It makes the noise in the natural way.
In day-time the bittern is silent, and seldom seen. It begins
its call in the evening, and is heard at intervals, booming six
or eight times, and then discontinues the noise for ten or twenty
minutes, when it is again renewed. This doleful call it only
makes when it is in solitude, and undisturbed. Whenever its
retreats are invaded, or it expects or fears the approach of an
enemy, it is perfectly silent. Nor has it ever been known to

THE BITT E R N. 271
boom in a domesticated state; “it continues, under the control
of man, a forlorn bird, equally incapable of attachment or
instruction.”
Through the summer the bittern manifests great inactivity,
and even indolence; it is slow and heavy-winged, and rises
with great difficulty and reluctance from the earth. However,
in the latter end of autumn, in the evening, it seems to assume
quite another nature, and manifests an altogether different
spirit. It then rises up into the air, by a spiral ascent, until
it is quite lost to the view, making a very singular noise, quite
different from its former boomings. This was anciently observed,
and Virgil refers to it in his first Georgic. This difference of
habit which characterizes this bird at different times, has caused
it, among several nations, to receive names which are directly
opposite in their significance. The Latins call it stellaris, the
star-reaching bird – while the Greeks, giving it a name corres-
ponding with its more constant habits, call it okmos, or the lazy
bird.
As a bird loving solitude, it is properly classed, by the pro-
phet Isaiah, with those doleful birds which should inhabit the
desolations of the land of Idumea : -
“From generation to generation it shall lie waste;
None shall pass through it for ever and ever.
But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it;
The owl also and the raven shall dwell in it.”
The prophet Zephaniah speaks of this bird in connection
with the ruins of Nineveh, alluding to its song, which well
accords with the idea of ruins:
“I will make Nineveh a desolation,
And dry like a wilderness.


272 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her,
All the beasts of the nations:
Both the cormorant and the bittern
Shall lodge in the upper lintels of it;
Their voice shall sing in the windows.”
Several critics have supposed that some other animal must bein-
tended here, as the place of its abode is said to be dry; and also
as the bird is represented as sitting in the upper lintels, and sing-
ing in the windows, whereas the bittern is at home in wet places,
and only makes its boomings among the grass in marshes. An
extract from a traveller will show, however, that all mentioned
by the prophet, and all that the habits of the bird require, are
found combined in the ruins of this doomed city. “Nineveh was
built upon the left shore of the Tigris, upon Assyria's side, being
now only a heap of rubbish, extending almost a league along -
the river. There are abundance of vaults and caverns unin-
habited; nor could a man well conjecture whether they were
the ancient habitations of the people, or whether any houses
were built upon them in former times; for most of the houses
in Turkie are like cellars, or else but one storie high.” Thus
bitterns may sit upon the upper lintels, and in the windows,
and at the same time be only even with the earth, and among
the grass that has overgrown the ruins. Another traveller
informs us that he saw in it a “subterranean canal;" all of
which goes to show, that though parts of the ruins are “dry
like a wilderness,” there are also parts where the bittern would
find a congenial home, amid wet grass, reeds, and sedges.
How often is the student of the sacred records challenged to
admire the truly wonderful manner in which they constantly
and increasingly confirm themselves in the light of the keenest
investigations of science. When skimming skeptics, going

T H E B ITT E R N. 273
hastily over the surface, discover want of agreement, and even
inconsistencies, true science, like a messenger from God, looks
devoutly deeper, and discovers, beneath the apparent antago-
mism of the outward, the deeper basis of a grand and glorious
whole. Go on, ye schools, trace still farther back the streams
of divine truth, and where they seem lost amid the accumulated
fragments of ages, dig still after them, and you will find them
- the deeper the fresher. Only do it humbly
T H E R U INS OF N IN E V E H. - |
* Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her ?”
Here, where these weeping willows humbly bend
Their heavy waving branches to the ground:
where Tigris' waters, softly gliding, send
Their drowsy murmurs on the air around,
I sit, and listen to the solemn sound
Which fancy brings across the waste of years!
Before me rises many a doleful mound,
Inspiring sadness and mysterious fears,
And to my present view the long gone past appears!
'Tis Nineveh -the city vast that sinned and wept
And sinned again, until God's patience, waiting long,
Came to an end, and the death-angel swept
His mighty sickle through the guilty throng!
Then ceased the midnight revel, dance, and song;
Grim ruin squatted, toad-like, on the splendor there;
Wile serpents crept the cursed wastes among;
Rank weeds grew out the doors and windows where
The feet of friendship crossed—where smiled the happy fair.



18

274 THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
I silent sit, and gaze around in solemn awe,
While o'er my spirit comes the voice of years gone by,
- And see fulfilled what ancient seers foresaw,
Still hear their voices 'mid the ruins sigh!
'Tis evening!—clouds of bats from out the arches fly;
The hooting owl, the bird of death and dread,
Makes echo answer to his boding cry;
The cormorant returns, with reptiles fed,
And hollow-booming bitterns thunder dirges for the dead!
Where once through curtained window, and through latticed gate,
Bright eyes, and smiles of beauty, ogled to the crowd—
There on the lintels, each one with his mate,
The doleful creatures sit and cry aloud.
Through empty halls, where whilom dwelt the proud,
The satyrs dance beneath the moonlit sky;
And thorns and brambles now are glory's shroud :
The raven's croak, the screech-owl's wailing cry
Is heard where ill-concealed the slimy hissing dragons lie!
Öſt 3 lig.
“The Ibis, whome in Egypte Israel found,
Fell byrd that living serpents can digest.”
THE Ibis, under that name, does not appear in our transla-
tion of the Bible. It is, however, generally agreed upon, that
it is three times mentioned in the Sacred Scriptures, under the
Hebrew name YANSUPH. Moses mentions it in Leviticus and
Deuteronomy among unclean birds, where it is translated
“great owl." Isaiah also mentions it in the thirty-fourth
chapter, where it is translated owl, and ranked among water-
birds, where the owl would seem out of place. The LXx, have,
in two of these places, rendered this word Ibis.
Inasmuch as this bird was held sacred in the Egyptian
idolatry, it is natural to suppose that Moses would not omit to
rank it among those birds which they should regard unclean
and an abomination.
The Ibis is a bird very much resembling the stork, but
larger—it has been called “the black stork.” It is about forty
inches in length. Its color is a kind of reddish white, mostly
inclining to red on the back and wings. Its bill is about seven


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276 T H E BIRDS OF T H E B I B L E.
º -
inches long, slightly curved, and ending in a somewhat blunt
point. Its neck is a good length, pretty thick, and curved like
that of a goose. Its legs are rather long, and very stiff.
This bird is known, in one or other of its species, in various
parts of the world; but it is especially numerous in Egypt,
along the Nile. It figures largely in the history and mythology
-
of that country. It feeds principally on serpents, and on this
account it was anciently of great use to the inhabitants. It
did not only reduce the number of venomous reptiles, and thus
abate these dangerous nuisances, but vast numbers of these
birds appeared after the waters of the overflowing Nile retired,
to devour the vermin left behind, and thus to rid the country
of the unwholesome and unpleasant odor which their decaying
carcasses would otherwise have produced. In consideration of
the advantage which they thus rendered, they were protected
by law, and it was a capital crime to kill one. Pictures of them
may still be seen occupying honorable and conspicuous places
among the hieroglyphics of Egypt. -
It was, no doubt, their use which suggested their sacredness.
They were not only held in the highest reverence by the ancient
Egyptians, but were even worshipped by them. They were not
only admitted into their temples, but were encouraged to dwell
there, and the worshippers took great pleasure in their presence.
This bird was also frequently found in the sepulchres, among
the mummies, as guardians of the dead. As already suggested,
this affords sufficient reason for their being prohibited as un-
clean in the law of Moses.
The enemies of Egypt, knowing the sacred veneration of the
people for the Ibis, sometimes took advantage of this to their
injury. Thus, on one occasion, when Cambyses, King of Per-
sia, was about to besiege Damietta, he placed some of these
—.

T H E I BIS. 277
-
- - -
birds before his army; and the Egyptians, not daring to shoot
against them, in fear and reverence for their sacred birds,
suffered the town to fall into the hands of their enemies.
There is a species of this bird also known in the southern
part of the United States, and in various parts of South
America. It is called the “wood-ibis.” The neck and body
of this species are white, and its bill is about nine inches long.
Mr. Bertram gives us a beautiful description of this interesting
fowl. “This solitary bird does not associate in flocks, but is
generally seen alone, commonly near the banks of great rivers,
in marshes or meadows, especially such as are covered by inun-
dations, and also in vast deserted rice plantations. He stands
alone, on the topmost limb of tall dead cypress trees, his neck
contracted or drawn in upon his shoulders, and his beak resting
like a long scythe upon his breast. In this pensive posture and
solitary situation, they look extremely grave, sorrowful, and
melancholy, as if in the deepest thought. They are never seen
on the sea-coast, and yet are never found at a great distance
from it. They feed on serpents, young alligators, frogs, and
other reptiles.”
There is also a species of scarlet ibis. It is common in most
parts of America within the tropics, and in almost all the West
India Islands. It is said to be a very beautiful bird, and has
been frequently domesticated. In its general habits it is like
the other species; only it is said to be less solitary, and great
numbers are sometimes seen to perch together in flocks upon
trees. They hatch upon the ground; and their young are said
to change their color several times as they advance towards
maturity — being first black, then grey, then white, and at the
end of the third year their plumage is beautifully scarlet.
The ancient Egyptians worshipped the ibis because it was
Y


278 THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
useful to them. We may smile at their superstition, or pity
their ignorance; but let us see that their devotion does not
condemn us. There are thousands in Christian lands who do
not manifest any feelings of devotion towards the Giver of all
good, even for the selfish reason that He benefits them by His
gifts. Who will say that this is not worse than heathem
Those had some grateful feelings, though they were misdirected
– these have none at all. Those worshipped a bird for one
benefit—these will not worship a God for a thousand. Wo unto
you, ye baptized pagans! Wo unto you, ye heathen in the
shadow of the Cross |

( jt (Dºgiftſ. It liſh (ſº tº 1.
“Next ºf ag. and osprey—both one kinde–
Of luxurie and rapine, emblems mete,
That haunte the shores, the choicest preye to finde,
And brast the bones, and scoope the marrowe sweete.”
WE place these two birds together, because, as the poet
tells us, they are “both one kinde.” They are mentioned only
in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, where they stand in the list of
unclean birds.
They are evidently a kind of eagle. Moses places them
between the eagle and the vulture; and as there is a great
variety of eagles, it is most natural to regard them as species
of this bird.
The word AZANIAH, which is translated osprey, means, in
Hebrew, “strong,” and points to the black eagle or the sea-eagle.
Mr. Bruce describes the black eagle, and gives it as his opinion
that it is the osprey. This species, though among the smallest
of the tribe, is also among the strongest. Homer speaks of the
Grecian general, Achilles, as “having the rapidity of a black

(279)
280 THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
eagle, that bird of prey which is at the same time the strongest
and the swiftest of birds.” Audubon calls the fish-hawk also
osprey, which is in place, the hawk being a species of
eagle.
Pliny pronounces the osprey a mongrel generation of birds.
“Moreouer, these orfraies, or ospreis, are not thought to be a
severall kind of aegles by themselves, but to be mungrels, and
engendered of divers sorts. And their young ospraies bee
counted a kind of ossifragi.” This conception, however, is now
left behind by the advancement of natural science.
The word PEREs, which is translated ossifrage, denotes “to
break, or to crush.” The word used in the English translation,
which means the “bone-breaker,” gives therefore the true sense
of the original. Harris says: “This name is given to a kind
of eagle, from the circumstance of its habit of breaking the
bones of its prey, after it has eaten the flesh; some say also,
that he even swallows the bones thus broken.” This agrees
with the representation of the poet who speaks of them as
birds
“That haunte the shores, the choicest preye to finde,
And brast the bones, and scoope the marrowe sweete.”
As suggested in these lines, however, we think they do not break
the bones with a view of eating them, but rather to enable
them “to scoope the marrowe sweete.”
Though we may not be able satisfactorily to designate the
exact kind of eagles which correspond with these birds, yet
knowing as we do that they are of the eagle family, we see
that there is a propriety and consistency in their being placed
among birds unclean and forbidden. God cannot allow that to
be food for his people which the pagans held in honor. The

THE oss IFRA GE AND Os PR Ey. 281
images of these birds would, at a future time, flourish as em-
blems upon the banners of those nations which should seek to
waste and destroy them. In front of the ruthless Babylonian
army it should be borne as the standard around which these
heathen should rally against Zion, and at the elevation of which
they should cry, inspired with new courage and hope,
“Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.”
The image of those birds should also adorn the banners of the
Romans, under whose power of irresistible conquest Judaism,
as a civil constitution, should forever pass away. It should
frown down upon them while, with sad remembrances of their
former independence and glory, they should go in deep humilia-
tion as the vanquished, to pay their tribute to Caesar. Yea,
more, the power that wasted them, as if to insult the fallen,
even caused the image of this bird to be placed over the gate
which led to the temple Should they not, therefore, be pre-
pared to hold in proper detestation those birds which should be
so extensively associated with their destruction as a nation, and
which should become the sad emblem of their humiliation º
In Deuteronomy, Moses places immediately after the osprey,
as unclean, a bird which is in Hebrew called DAJA, and is
translated in English, Glede. Of this bird little is known.
Bochart thinks the black vulture is intended, as the root of the
word signifies blackness, or darkness of color. He also informs
us that the Latin writers speak of an “ater vulture,” black
vulture, and sometimes call this species absolute “migras aves,”
black birds. This bird has not yet been satisfactorily desig-
nated by the learned, on account of the scantiness of the data
which they have to work upon. It may be a species of eagle,


Y 2

282 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
or a species of vulture, as it is placed by Moses between these
families.
Though it would be pleasant to have a full description of
the appearance and habits of these birds, for the mere
satisfaction of knowing, yet such knowledge is not necessary,
further than we have it for the right interpretation of any pas-
sages of Scripture in which reference is made to them. What
we have found to record, even though it be scanty, is interest-
ing to us, because it is associated with Birds of the Bible:
“The smallest fragment given to us by friends
Is doubly dear because of those who gave:
Not on its greatness does its worth depend;
What love has given we delight to save.
E’en thus what God, the best of friends, in love imparts,
We treasure in our minds, and cherish in our hearts.”
-
d it ſluiſit fit fºul. - |
“Within this homestead lived, without a peer,
For crowing loud, the noble chanticleer; |
* * * * Whose singing did surpass
The merry notes of organs at the mass.
More certain was the crowing of the cock
To number hours, than is an abbey-clock;
And sooner than the matin bell was rung,
He clapt his wings upon his roost and sung.”
“O Irusalim, Irusalim, how ofte wolde I gedre
togider thi children as an henne gederith togidere
here chyckens undir hir wyngis, and thou woldist
not.”
THE only domestic fowl mentioned in the Bible is the watch-
ful cock, and the devoted hen with her brood. These, with
their habits and ways, are so well known to all, that in our
account of them we will confine ourselves more particularly to
such matters connected with them as do not so readily come
within common observation. Familiar as they are to us, they are
not without interest. In addition to their connection with



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284 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Scripture truth, they bring back to us also many pleasant asso-
ciations of home and childhood, which clothe themselves with
a peculiar sacredness when we view them as
“Pictured in memory's mellowing glass.”
The cock and hen were evidently the first fowl domesticated,
and seem to be the oldest companions of mankind. Aristo-
phanes, says Goldsmith, calls the cock the “Persian bird,” and
tells us that he enjoyed that kingdom before some of its earliest
monarchs. It does not appear that they were known to the
Hebrews before the time of Christ; at least there is no refer-
ence to them in the old Testament. It is supposed that they
were first introduced into Europe from Persia; but it is not
definitely known how early. This fowl was known even in the
most savage parts of Europe so far back, that we are told it
was one of the kinds of food forbidden among the ancient
Britons. It was brought into America by the early settlers of
this country. -
These fowls are no more found in a wild state in Persia; but
they still exist in their state of untamed independence in the
woods on the coast of Malabar, in the island Tinian, and in
some other islands of the Indian ocean.
In their domesticated state they are found in almost endless
varieties. Scarcely two can be found that look alike. In this
respect they are like domesticated and cultivated flowers, which
are known to become very much modified and altered. We think
it will be found even in the human species, that there is a certain
sameness in the form, features, habits, and general appearance of
savages, which does not appear among civilized nations. The
cause may be sought partly in external influences, but chiefly, we
think, in the power of the life over the external form and appear-
THE DO M EST I C F O W L. 285
ance. “All birds,” says Goldsmith, “taken under the protection
of man, lose a part of their natural figure, and are altered, not
only in their habits, but their very form. Climate, food, and
captivity are three very powerful agents in producing these
alterations; and those birds that have longest felt their influence
under human direction, are the most likely to have the greatest
variety in their figures, their plumage, and their dispositions.”
The male, however much he may have changed in other
respects, has not surrendered that majestic independence, and
conscious self-importance for which he is so remarkable.
“Domesticated, but not subdued, he marches at the head of his
train of wives and offspring, with a port of proud defiance, not
less ready to punish aggression against his dependants, than to
assert his superiority upon the challenge of any rival.” The
following is graphic :
“The widow had unbarred the door,
And chanticleer went strutting out before.
With royal courage, and with heart so light,
As showed he scorned the visions of the night.
Now roaming in the yard he spurred the ground, -
And gave to Partlet the first grain he found.
He chucked again when other corns he found,
And scarcely deigned to set a foot to ground;
But swaggered like a lord about his hall,
And his seven wives came running at his call.”
The bravery, courage, and pugnacity which characterize the
cock, have become to man the occasion for sport and specula-
tion. The “mean and ungenerous amusement” of cock-fighting,
as Goldsmith calls it, has much prevailed in the world. It is
of heathem origin, and truly heathen in its cruelty and inhu-
manity. It was very anciently practised among the Greeks


286 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
and Romans. They had cock-fights annually at Athens, to
which the great, as well as the vulgar, resorted. “In China,
India, the Philippine islands, and all over the East, cock-fighting
is the sport and amusement even of kings and princes.” It is
well known that this barbarous and brutalizing diversion has
been a favorite sport with the English, although it has
been repeatedly denounced and prohibited by the laws. It has
of late gone out of repute; we can only say, it is high time
for Christian nations to put away the childish and cruel practices
of pagans. In some parts of Maryland and Virginia, this spe-
cies of heathenism prevailed yet very extensively only a few
years ago. The practice is not only injurious, in that it calls
into exercise the cruel passions of men, but that it strengthens
and feeds man's own pugnacity. It was ascertained, by expe-
rience, that a great deal of human fighting always found place
on every occasion of public cock-fighting. A practice so
plainly against the Christian spirit, and so repugnant to all the
finer feelings of our nature, can only flourish in communities
where deep moral darkness and depravity reign.
The cock is celebrated for his watchfulness. He cries the
hour with all the regularity of wakeful watchmen; hence he
has been called, the clock of the shepherd:
“In the barn the tenant cock,
Close to Partlet perched on high,
Briskly crows—the shepherd's clock-
Jocund that morning's nigh.”
Some derive his name from a Greek word which signifies
“without a bed, without rest or sleep;" because he rouses men
from their repose. Others trace it to a Hebrew word, which
means, “the coming of the light." This is most likely the

T H E D O M EST I C F O W. L. 287
true derivation. Shakspeare calls him the “bird of dawning,”
because he ushers in the dawn of day. For this reason also
he was, among the heathem, sacred to the sun. So regular and
sure is this fowl to note, by crowing, certain periods of the night,
that there is real ground for the quick retort in the following
apt lines of the poet Montgomery:
“Who taught thee, Chanticleer, to count the clock 2
—Nay, who taught man that lesson but the cock?
Long before wheels and bells had learned to chime,
I told the steps, unseen, unheard, of time.”
Our Saviour referred to the cock, in connection with certain
periods of time, in the ever-memorable and melancholy case of
Peter's denial. In the midst of those strong and confident pro-
fessions of eternal faithfulness which the impetuous Apostle
made, on their way from the upper room in Jerusalem to the
Garden of Gethsemane, his Lord confronted him with the fearful
prophecy: “Verily, I say unto thee, that this night, before the
cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice!” A few hours pass.
The sorrows of Gethsemane are over ! The betrayer has come
with his band, and the adder has kissed the lamb Jesus is in
the judgment-hall of the high-priest, and John is by his side
See, yonder among the low rabble that has gathered back in the
palace, warming himself at a fire, is Peter A maid passing
says to him: “Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee.” But he
denied before all: “I know not what thou sayest.” Then he
goes out into the porch, where another maid passing says to
those that stood by: “This fellow was also with Jesus of Naza-
reth.” He again denied with an oath: “I do not know the
man.” After a little while those that stood around said to him:
z. Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth


288 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
thee." Then he, being angry, began to curse and to swear: “I
know not the man.” The third time “And immediately the
cock crew And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which
said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.
And he went out and wept bitterly"
It is known that Peter recovered from his fall. He sought,
with tears of penitence, until he ſound his Lord again, and
received His pardon who casts no one out that comes to Him.
He became again, and remained to the end of his life, a faithful
follower of the Lord. An old tradition beautifully says, that
during his whole life, Peter always wept when he heard the
cock crow As it was the voice of the crowing cock that
reminded Peter of his sin, and called him to penitence for
denying his master, it became customary very early to place
weather-cocks upon towers and steeples. It was well, if this
emblem reminded men of watchfulness, and became a silent
monitor to wanderers.
There is a slight variation in the narrative of Peter's denial,
as given by the different evangelists, which may be noted. In
Matthew, Luke, and John, our Saviour is represented as saying,
that “before the cock crow,” Peter should deny him “thrice;"
whilst in Mark he says, “before the cock crow twice, thou shalt
deny me thrice.” “These texts may be very satisfactorily
reconciled, by observing, that ancient authors, both Greek and
Latin, mention two cock-crowings; the one of which was soon
after midnight, the other about three o'clock in the morning;
and this latter being most noticed by men, as the signal of their
approaching labors, was called, by way of eminence, “the cock-
crowing;" and to this alone Matthew, giving the general sense
of our Saviour's warning to Peter, refers; but Mark, more accu-
rately recording his very words, mentions the two cock-crowings."

T H E D O M EST I C F O W L. 289
It seems, that sometimes the cock-crowing soon after mid-
night, and that at the early dawn were taken together, in a
general way, as the period of cock-crowing, by way of distinc-
tion from the other periods of time. The Saviour seems to
refer to this more general division of time: “Watch ye there-
fore : for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at
even, at midnight, or at cock-crowing, or in the morning.”
The female domestic fowl differs very much in disposition
from the male; being remarkably quiet, patient, modest, and
humble. She is very affectionate, faithful, and devoted to her
brood. Though naturally averse to strife and contention, she
defends her offspring with great courage and determination,
attacking with equal boldness a swine, a mastiff, a horse, or a
human being. Strong and deep concern appears in every move-
ment as she leads forth her little family, calling them to the
food she has scratched up with her feet, by a variety of tender
notes; and warning them, in her own affectionate way, of the
approach of danger.
The affection of the hen for her brood is made, by our
Saviour, the subject of one of the most beautiful and touching
metaphors to be found in the wide range of sacred literature.
Think what that divine heart felt, while you read what those
sacred lips pronounce! “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest
the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how
often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen
doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!”
Who has not noticed how affectionately a hen gathers her brood
under her wings, especially when a bird of prey hovers near.
Could the Saviour have had reference to the Roman army, upon
whose banner there was an eagle, and which should so soon come
down upon those whom he was so willing to shelter, if they

19 Z
290 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
only gathered to him Though this would scarcely heighten
its tenderness or beauty, it would only refer what is so merci-
fully general to a particular application.
Plutarch, who died 140 years after Christ, very beautifully
describes this parental affection of the hen. “Do we not daily
observe with what care the hen protects her chickens? giving
some shelter under her wing, supporting others upon her back,
calling them around her, and picking out their food; and if any
animal approaches that terrifies them, driving it away with a
courage and strength truly wonderful!”
There is also a very fine Greek epigram illustrative of the
affectionate habit of this domestic fowl, which leads her even
to sit till she perishes over her brood. It has been translated
thus:
“Beneath her fostering wing, the hen defends
Her darling offspring, while the snow descends;
And through the winter's day unmoved defies
The chilling fleeces and inclement skies;
Till vanquished by the cold and piercing blast,
True to her charge she perishes at last!”

d it ºut.
“What shall I call thee–bird, or beast, or neither?
— Just what you will — I’m rather both than either;
Much like the season when I whirl my flight,
The dusk of evening—neither day nor night.” -
“Mirae Sané conformationis est animal; bipes,
quadrupes, ambulans non pedibus, volans non
pennis; videns sine luce, in luce caecus; extra
lucem luce utitur, in luce luce caret; avis cum
dentibus, sine rostro, cum mammis, cum lacte,
pullos etiam inter volandum gerens.”
IT has been somewhat difficult for us to decide whether we
ought to give place in our book to this “bird, or beast, or
neither.” Naturalists have long since placed it among quad-
rupeds; and yet, in spite of science, it will be in the air among
birds; and the people, and the poets, and even the scientific.
when they forget the books, will call it a bird. Pliny, Gessner.
and Aldrovandus will have it a bird; but many others, equally
learned, say no. We cannot consent to be arbiter in these dis-
putes of the scientific; in our science it is a quadruped – but
in all our associations it is a bird.

(291)
292 THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
Moses places the bat among fowls. He mentions last in his
list of prohibited birds “the bat;" and he adds: “All fowls
that creep, going upon all fours, shall be an abomination unto
you.” In Deuteronomy, Moses the lawgiver seems to recog-
nize its somewhat equivocal character; and hence, placing it at
the end of his list of unclean animals, both bird and beast, he
seems to make it the head of a class which seems “rather both
than either.” “The bat, and every creeping thing that flieth
is unclean to you : they shall not be eaten.” It has been well
said: “It is too much a bird to be properly a mouse, and too
much a mouse to be properly a bird.”
AEsop has built a very instructive fable upon the ambiguous
nature of the Bat. We most earnestly commend it to a certain
class of human creatures who are this, or that, or neither, and
rather both than either, just as their own interest makes it
convenient or profitable. How could the portrait of these
human bats be better drawn than is done in this fable 2
“Once upon a time there was a fierce war waged between the
Birds and the Beasts. For a long while the issue of the battle
was uncertain, and the bat, taking advantage of his ambiguous
nature, kept aloof and remained neutral. At length when the
beasts seemed to prevail, the bat joined their forces, and
appeared active in the fight; but a rally being made by the
birds, which proved successful, he was found at the end of the
day among the ranks of the winning party. A peace being
speedily concluded, the bat's conduct was condemned alike by
both parties, and being acknowledged by neither, and so
excluded from the terms of the truce, he was obliged to skulk
off as best he could, and has ever since lived in holes and
corners, never daring to show his face except in the duskiness
of twilight.”


T H E B A T. 293
Indeed, it is no wonder that men are puzzled to classify this
wonderfully odd and irregular little monster. It seems as if
nature in it exists without rules; it seems to be a kind of har-
mony of discords — a complete unity in diversity. It exists in
a great number of genera, species, and varieties. Some as small
as a common mouse, and some as large as a pullet or squirrel.
Our common bat is not above two and a half inches long, while
the great Madagascar bat is near four feet broad when the wings
are extended, and a foot long from the tip of the nose to the
extremity. Some of the bats of Africa have long tails like
mice. Some have four ears, others two. One kind has a horn
growing from its nose, like a rhinoceros. In some species the
nose is scarcely visible, the eyes are sunk near the tips of the
ear, and are confounded with the cheeks. Some again have
ears as long as their body, the face is twisted into the shape of
a horse-shoe, and the nose covered with some kind of crust.
The fore-feet are, properly speaking, neither feet nor wings,
though they are used for walking and flying. The wings are a
kind of winged paws; not covered with either feathers or hair,
but a kind of bare membrane fastened on small extended bones,
like the sails of a ship to the masts. As to color, some are
white, some black, some reddish like a fox, some ash-colored,
and some sallow. -
No wonder, then, that this curious creature, so much like a
bird, and so much like a beast, should be regarded as a kind of
outlaw in the animal economy, originating from fowl and beast,
and rightly neither:
“Last the foul Batt, of byrd and beast first bredde,
Flitting with littel leathern sailes dispredde.”
Bats are as singular in their habits as they are in their form.
They only go forth in the twilight, and then only on pleasant


Z 2
294 "..." OF THE BIBLE.
summer evenings. From this circumstance they are named, in
Hebrew, OTHELAPH, “the flier in duskiness.” At such times
they dart about with an awkward, laborious, and irregular
flight after flies, and various kinds of insects, upon which they
feed. This is perhaps the only way in which they render
". useful to man, ridding the air of a superabundance
of troublesome insects:
“For he snaps them up, that monster fierce,
Let loose from his darksome den.”
During the day they live retired in the lofts of barns or
churches, in hollow thick-leaved trees, in caves, in the chinks
of ruined buildings, and similar dark and gloomy places. Here
they do not sit like birds, or creep into holes like mice, but they
hang themselves up by their hinder claws. A singular taste!
But why should they not do differently from all other birds and
beasts? They have their reason, and a very good one, for
choosing this position. They find it very difficult to rise into
the air from a flat surface; for this reason they suspend them-
selves in this way, and they take wing with perfect ease, by
relinquishing their hold. Like a prudent seaman, they anchor
in a way which will enable them to set sail again.
In the winter they return to caverns, vaults, holes in ruins,
and in old deserted buildings. Here they exist in a torpid
state, clinging together, and hanging in large bunches to keep
themselves warm :
“Silent bats in drowsy clusters cling.”
“We here observe the admirable arrangement of the great
Author of Nature, who has rendered it necessary that these
animals should be torpid during all the time that their appro-


T H E BAT. 295
priate food is not to be obtained. In warm climates, where a
constant succession of insects occurs, the same species of bat
which, in a cold region, would become torpid, continue in
activity throughout the year.”
Bats are hateful creatures, not only in their appearance, but
also from the fact that they are often covered with cimer lectu-
larius, or the common bed-bug. The recollection of this fact
may serve to explain to ladies the wonder occasioned by
the discovery of these unwelcome visitors in new houses; and,
what is still more important, it may prevent uncharitable sus-
picions from resting upon occasional visitors! Moreover, in
such cases, it is better all around, where this kind of mischief
is done, to let the bat bear it. The windows, long closed, are
opened the very evening when friends arrive, and in and out
goes the “nasty thing,” shouldering its own sins upon the
innocent - - -
The poets have not ſailed to find, in this queer beast-fowl, the
elements of poetry—witty, humorous, and moral. We have the
pleasure of introducing here a short poem on this little “monster
fierce,” by Prof. WILLIAM M. NEVIN, Esq., which is not only
admirably descriptive of its nature and habits, but is also in
style as fine a specimen of Saxon simplicity as can anywhere
be found.
T H E BAT.
The bat, from his cavern, when nothing stirred,
When all around no sound was heard
Of frolicsome beast or twittering bird,
Thought it time he should take his flight;
So down from its roof, to which he did cling,
He dropped, and spreading each leathern wing,
Away he flitted, the fleetest thing
To be seen abroad that night.



2
THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
In the woods, to hear the owl complain
Or the whippowil repeat his strain,
Not long he thought it best to remain,
But, urged by a livelier whim,
He left the trees with their birds at rest,
The bosky dell in its moonlight blest,
And the meadow fain with the dew to be prest;
These were all too dull for him.
On the shaded green the boys were out,
And above their heads he flirted about;
When they greeted him all with a cheer and shout,
And called him their sports to share;
And a charm, to wheedle him down, they sung,
When quick he darted the fellows among
And after him then their hats they flung,
But not a whit did he care.
He whipped away, in his fitful flight,
Through a casement into a parlor bright,
Where the young and gay were met that night,
And threw them into alarm;
For the maiden feared that the ugly thing,
As he fitted her by on his leathern wing,
Himself would into her tresses fling,
And do her a deal of harm.
Ah, now the trifler will sure be caught!
The knights are up, with the valorous thought
To strike him down, and he has forgot
Where it was that he first came in.
They are after him hard with brush and cane;
His nights are numbered he must be slain!
But he darted – whither? They watch in vain;
He is off, no more to be seen!
T H E B A T. 297
He is sporting without, in a safer place,
He is giving the moths and the millers a chase;
For he feels himself in a hungry case,
And these his affections crave;
So, whenever a lusty one he sees,
He snaps him up with the quickest ease,
And having feasted himself on these,
He retires again to his cave.
Bats both see and hear well; that is, they see well, like owls,
in the twilight; but their chief fort lies in the sense of touch.
In this they are said to exceed in acuteness all other creatures.
“The reaction of the air against the membranes is sufficient to
warn them of any obstacle, however slight, and enables them to
turn, lower themselves, or draw in their wings, so as to clear the
body without the least appearance of effort.”
We have already remarked, that bats love old dilapidated
houses and forsaken ruins, where darkness, loneliness, and
desolation reign. There is a beautiful allusion to this in Isaiah.
The prophet, painting in glowing and rapturous language the
glory of the latter days, when all superstition and idolatry
shall wane and vanish before the light of the Lord, says:
“In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver
And his idols of gold,
Which they made each one for himself to worship,
To the moles and to the bats.”
Bats make no nests. Their homes and nurseries are those
places to which they cling in darkness. They have two young
at a time, and are mammiferous; it is upon this fact mainly
that their right to be classed among fowl is denied. They are
said to be very strongly attached to their offspring—these hang


298 T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
fast to their parents where they hang. When the old bat is
compelled to leave them, to go out after food, she takes them
carefully off from herself, and hangs them up against the wall,
where they adhere by clinging in silent patience until she
returns !
Of all the varieties of this animal, there is none so remarkable
as the vampire bat. Of this there are several species, different
in size, from two to four feet in the spread of their wings, and
from the size of a pigeon up to the size of a hen. These exist
in large numbers in the hot countries, especially in America.
These fearful creatures have a most voracious appetite, and feed
on almost any kind of living creatures. Like all bats, they
love loneliness and desolate places. Here they hang suspended,
with their claws fastened to the limbs of trees, and their heads
downwards; and hence they sally out in troops in the night in
search of prey, and to suck the juice of the palm fruit, of which
they are very fond.
What is most fearfully interesting about these vampire bats,
is the fact that they suck the blood of bird, beast, and men
To accomplish their purposes, they steal up to them when they
are asleep, and in some way not fully known, softly open the
skin into a vein, and fastening their mouth upon it like a leech,
extract vast quantities of blood, and often produce death! To
make their victim sleep more soundly, that thus they may effect
their ends the more successfully, they keep fanning him with
their wings, while they are destroying his life. This fanning,
in those warm countries, produces a most pleasant feeling; and
this, combined with the ever-increasing weakness which results
from the loss of blood, causes the person to become insensible to
pain, and thus he sweetly falls into that sleep which knows no
waking!


T H E B A T. 299
There are many accounts upon record, of the manner in
which these dreadful bats do their deadly work. We will give
one case. “Captain Stedman, while sleeping in the open air
in Surinam, was attacked by one of these bats. On awaking
about four o'clock in the morning, he was extremely alarmed to
find himself weltering in congealed blood, and without feeling any
pain. He says, that these animals, knowing by instinct that the
person they intend to attack is in a sound slumber, generally
alight near the feet; where, while the creature continues fanning
with his enormous wings, which keeps the person cool, he bites
a piece out of the tip of the great toe, so very small that the
head of a pin could scarcely be received into the wound, which
is consequently not painful. Yet, through this orifice, he sucks
the blood until he is obliged to disgorge. He then begins
again, and thus continues sucking and disgorging till he is
scarcely able to fly; and the sufferer has often been known to
sleep from time into eternity." One species of the vampire
bites in the ear instead of the toe; and sometimes fastens itself
upon other parts of the body, but always in places where the
blood will flow most readily.
The thought is fearful, of being thus soothed and fanned into
the slumbers of death !—to fall under the power of such fasci-
nating charmers, who beguile us with a temporary and illusive
pleasure,
“Till on our browes, death, counterfeiting sleep,
With leaden legs and battie wings doth creepe.”
Is not this, however, a most apt and impressive similitude of
that still more fearful vampire Sin, which feeds upon the blood
of souls, and which, while it fans them pleasantly into carnal
rest, is, at the same time, soothing them softly into the slumbers
of eternal death !


300
T H E BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
T H E W A M PIRE OF SIN.
In dreary dens and dusky regions of the earth,
The vampire, Sin, avoids the light of day;
But in the twilight deep he seeks the halls of mirth,
And flits around to mark his future prey.
The ruddy cheek, the life so glad and light,
Inflamed with wine and lust.—“Ho! tempting sight—
How I shall glut upon that blood to-night!”
The feast is o'er—the mirthful dance is past,
The wreaths are faded, and the lamps are out:
The sated guests are now dispersing fast,
And jocund rings around the homeward shout.
Soon chiding conscience, and a restless heart,
The solace find which slumbers can impart,
On couches softened by luxurious art.
In silence now, the vampire, sin, that feeds
Upon the blood of souls, steals darkly near !
Fast to its vitals leeched, the spirit bleeds,
Disturbed by neither weakness, pain, nor fear !
Dull surfeit opiates the fevered brain–
The vampire's fanning wings allay the pain –
The spirit slumbers ne'er to wake again!
T. H. E. E. N. D.



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