. The bird . insects, as in the bees and ants, is not discoveredamong birds. Flocks of them are common, but true republics arerare. Family ties are very strong in their influence, such as maternityand love. Brotherhood, the sympathy of species, the mutual assist-ance rendered even by different kinds, are not unknown. Never-theless, fraternity is strong among them m the inferior line. Thewhole heart of the bird is in his love, in his nest. There lies his isolation, his feebleness, his dependence; there alsothe temptation to seek for himself a defender. The most exalted of living; beings is not
. The bird . insects, as in the bees and ants, is not discoveredamong birds. Flocks of them are common, but true republics arerare. Family ties are very strong in their influence, such as maternityand love. Brotherhood, the sympathy of species, the mutual assist-ance rendered even by different kinds, are not unknown. Never-theless, fraternity is strong among them m the inferior line. Thewhole heart of the bird is in his love, in his nest. There lies his isolation, his feebleness, his dependence; there alsothe temptation to seek for himself a defender. The most exalted of living; beings is not the less one of thosewhich the most eagerly demand protection. Via :>; Page 67. On the life of the bird in the egg.—I draw these detailsfrom the accurate M. Duvernoy. Ovology in our days has become ascience. Yet I know but a few treatises specially devoted to the birdsegg. The oldest is that of an Abbe Manesse, written in the last cen-tury, very verbose, and not very instructive (the MS. is preserved in. the Museum Library). The same library possesses the German workof Wirfing and Gunther on nests and eggs ; and another, also German, ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 315 whose illustrations appear of a superior character, although stilldefective. I have seen a part of a new collection of engravings, muchmore carefully executed. Page 14. Gelatinous and nourishing seas.—Humboldt, in oneof his early works ( Scenes in the Tropics ), was the first, I think,to authenticate this fact. He attributes it to the prodigious quantityof medusEe, and other analogous creatures, in a decomposed state inthese waters. If, however, such a cadaverous dissolution really pre-vailed there, would it not render the waters fatal to the fish, insteadof nourishmg them ? Perhaps this phenomenon should be attributedrather to nascent life than to life extinct, to that first living fermen-tation in which the lowest microscopic organizations develop them-selves. It is especially in the Polar Seas, whose aspect is so w
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