. The bird . innocent animal in its family-circle, but whose undefined form makesit giim-looking and unfortunate. You perceive that nature has 90 THE FIRST FLUTTERINGS OF THE WING. sought in it ilte luing, and found only a hideous membranous skin,which nevertheless performs a wings function : I am a bird ; see you my wings ? Yes; but even the wing does not make the bird. Place yourself towards the centre of the museum, and close tothe clock. There you perceive, on your left, the first rudimentof the wing in the pengniin of the southern pole, and its brother,tlie Arctic auk, one degree more dev
. The bird . innocent animal in its family-circle, but whose undefined form makesit giim-looking and unfortunate. You perceive that nature has 90 THE FIRST FLUTTERINGS OF THE WING. sought in it ilte luing, and found only a hideous membranous skin,which nevertheless performs a wings function : I am a bird ; see you my wings ? Yes; but even the wing does not make the bird. Place yourself towards the centre of the museum, and close tothe clock. There you perceive, on your left, the first rudimentof the wing in the pengniin of the southern pole, and its brother,tlie Arctic auk, one degree more developed ; scaly winglets, whoseglittering feathers rather recall the fish than the bird. On landthe creature is feeble; but while earth is difficult for it, air isimpossible. Do not complain too warmly. Its prescient mother. destines it for the Polar Seas, where it will only need to clothes it carefully in a fine coat of fat and an impenetrablecovering. She will have it warm among the icebergs. Which is thebetter means ? It seems as if she had hesitated, had wavered. Bythe side of the booby we see with surprise an essay at quite another THE FIRST FLUTTEPJNGS OF THE WING. 97 genus, yet one not less remarkable as a maternal precaution. I referto a very rare gorfou—;which I have seen in no other museum —attired in the rough skin of a quadruped, resembling a goats fleece,but more shining, perhaps, in the living animal, and certainly imper-meable to water. To link together the birds which do not &y, we must find theconnecting point in the navigator of the desert—the bird-camel, theostrich, resembling the camel itself in its internal structure. At least,if its imperfect wings cannot raise it above the earth, they assist itpowerfully in walking, and endow it with extraordinary swiftness :it
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Keywords: ., bookauthormich, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectbirds
