Love's Meinie Part 4

67. Of which you are now to note farther, that a bird is required to manage his wing so as to obtain two results with one blow:--he has to keep himself up, as well as to get along.

But observe, he only requires to keep himself up _because_ he has to get along. The buoyancy might have been given at once, if nature had wanted _that_ only; she might have blown the feathers up with the hot air of the breath, till the bird rose in air like a cork in water. But it has to be, not a buoyant cork, but a buoyant _bullet_. And therefore that it may have momentum for pace, it must have weight to carry; and to carry that weight, the wings must deliver their blow with effective vertical, as well as oblique, force.

Here, again, you may take the matter in brief sum. Whatever is the s.h.i.+p's loss, is the bird's gain; whatever tendency the s.h.i.+p has to leeway, is all given to the bird's support, so that every atom[13] of force in the blow is of service.

[13] I don't know what word to use for an infinitesimal degree or divided portion of force: one cannot properly speak of a force being cut into pieces; but I can think of no other word than atom.

68. Therefore you have to construct your organic weapon, so that this absolutely and perfectly economized force may be distributed as the bird chooses at any moment. That, if it wants to rise, it may be able to strike vertically more than obliquely;--if the order is, go-ahead, that it may put the oblique screw on. If it wants to stop in an instant, that it may be able to throw its wings up full to the wind; if it wants to hover, that it may be able to lay itself quietly on the wind with its wings and tail, or, in calm air, to regulate their vibration and expansion into tranquillity of gliding, or of pausing power. Given the various proportions of weight and wing; the conditions of possible increase of muscular force and quill-strength in proportion to size; and the different objects and circ.u.mstances of flight,--you have a series of exquisitely complex problems, and exquisitely perfect solutions, which the life of the youngest among you cannot be long enough to read through so much as once, and of which the future infinitudes of human life, however granted or extended, never will be fatigued in admiration.

69. I take the rude outline of sail in Fig. 3, and now considering it as a jib of one of our own sailing vessels, slightly exaggerate the loops at the edge, and draw curved lines from them to the opposite point, Fig. 4; and I have a reptilian or dragon's wing, which would, with some ramification of the supporting ribs, become a bat's or moth's; that is to say, an extension of membrane between the ribs (as in an umbrella), which will catch the wind, and flutter upon it, like a leaf; but cannot strike it to any purpose. The flying squirrel drifts like a falling leaf; the bat flits like a black rag torn at the edge.

To give power, we must have plumes that can strike, as with the flat of a sword-blade; and to give _perfect_ power, these must be laid over each other, so that each may support the one below it. I use the word below advisedly: we have to strike _down_. The lowest feather is the one that first meets the adverse force. It is the one to be supported.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 4.]

Now for the manner of the support. You must all know well the look of the machicolated parapets in mediaeval castles. You know they are carried on rows of small projecting b.u.t.tresses constructed so that, though the uppermost stone, far-projecting, would break easily under any shock, it is supported by the next below, and so on, down to the wall. Now in this figure I am obliged to separate the feathers by white s.p.a.ces, to show you them distinctly. In reality they are set as close to each other as can be, but putting them as close as I can, you get _a_ or _b_, Fig. 5, for the rough section of the wing, thick towards the bird's head, and curved like a sickle, so that in striking down it catches the air, like a reaping-hook, and in rising up, it throws off the air like a pent-house.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 5.]

70. The stroke would therefore be vigorous, and the recovery almost effortless, were even the direction of both actually vertical. But they are vertical only with relation to the bird's body. In s.p.a.ce they follow the forward flight, in a softly curved line; the downward stroke being as effective as the bird chooses, the recovery scarcely encounters resistance in the softly gliding ascent. Thus, in Fig. 5, (I can only explain this to readers a little versed in the elements of mechanics,) if B is the locus of the center of gravity of the bird, moving in slow flight in the direction of the arrow, w is the locus of the leading feather of its wing, and _a_ and _b_, roughly, the successive positions of the wing in the down-stroke and recovery.

71. I say the down-stroke is as effective as the bird chooses; that is to say, it can be given with exactly the quant.i.ty of impulse, and exactly the quant.i.ty of supporting power, required at the moment. Thus, when the bird wants to fly slowly, the wings are fluttered fast, giving vertical blows; if it wants to pause absolutely in still air, (this large birds cannot do, not being able to move their wings fast enough,) the velocity becomes vibration, as in the humming-bird: but if there is wind, any of the larger birds can lay themselves on it like a kite, their own weight answering the purpose of the string,[14] while they keep the wings and tail in an inclined plane, giving them as much gliding ascent as counteracts the fall. They nearly all, however, use some slightly gliding force at the same time; a single stroke of the wing, with forward intent, seeming enough to enable them to glide on for half a minute or more without stirring a plume. A circling eagle floats an inconceivable time without visible stroke: (fancy the pretty action of the inner wing, _backing_ air instead of water, which gives exactly the breadth of circle he chooses). But for exhibition of the complete art of flight, a swallow on rough water is the master of masters. A sea-gull, with all its splendid power, generally has its work cut out for it, and is visibly fighting; but the swallow plays with wind and wave as a girl plays with her fan, and there are no words to say how many things it does with its wings in any ten seconds, and does consummately. The mystery of its dart remains always inexplicable to me; no eye can trace the bending of bow that sends that living arrow.

But the main structure of the n.o.ble weapon we may with little pains understand.

[14] See App. p. 112, -- 145.

72. In the sections _a_ and _b_ of Fig. 5, I have only represented the quills of the outer part of the wing. The relation of these, and of the inner quills, to the bird's body may be very simply shown.

Fig. 6 is a rude sketch, typically representing the wing of any bird, but actually founded chiefly on the sea-gull's.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 6.]

It is broadly composed of two fans, A and B. The out-most fan, A, is carried by the bird's hand; of which I rudely sketch the contour of the bones at _a_. The innermost fan, B, is carried by the bird's forearm, from wrist to elbow, _b_.

The strong humerus, _c_, corresponding to our arm from shoulder to elbow, has command of the whole instrument. No feathers are attached to this bone; but covering and protecting ones are set in the skin of it, completely filling, when the active wing is open, the s.p.a.ce between it and the body. But the plumes of the two great fans, A and B, are set into the bones; in Fig. 8, farther on, are shown the projecting k.n.o.bs on the main arm bone, set for the reception of the quills, which make it look like the club of Hercules. The connection of the still more powerful quills of the outer fan with the bones of the hand is quite beyond all my poor anatomical perceptions, and, happily for me, also beyond needs of artistic investigation.

73. The feathers of the fan A are called the primaries. Those of the fan B, secondaries. Effective actions of flight, whether for support or forward motion, are, I believe, all executed with the primaries, every one of which may be briefly described as the strongest cimeter that can be made of quill substance; flexible within limits, and elastic at its edges--carried by an elastic central shaft--twisted like a windmill sail--striking with the flat, and recovering with the edge.

The secondary feathers are more rounded at the ends, and frequently notched; their curvature is reversed to that of the primaries; they are arranged, when expanded, somewhat in the shape of a shallow cup, with the hollow of it downwards, holding the air therefore, and aiding in all the pause and buoyancy of flight, but little in the activity of it.

Essentially they are the brooding and covering feathers of the wing; exquisitely beautiful--as far as I have yet seen, _most_ beautiful--in the bird whose brooding is of most use to us; and which has become the image of all tenderness. "How often would I have gathered thy children ... and ye would not."

74. Over these two chief ma.s.ses of the plume are set others which partly complete their power, partly adorn and protect them; but of these I can take no notice at present. All that I want you to understand is the action of the two main ma.s.ses, as the wing is opened and closed.

Fig. 7 roughly represents the upper surface of the main feathers of the wing closed. The secondaries are folded over the primaries; and the primaries shut up close, with their outer edges parallel, or nearly so.

Fig. 8 roughly shows the outline of the bones, in this position, of one of the larger pigeons.[15]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 7.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 8.]

[15] I find even this mere outline of anatomical structure so interferes with the temper in which I wish my readers to think, that I shall withdraw it in my complete edition.

75. Then Fig. 9 is (always sketched in the roughest way) the outer, Fig. 10 the inner, surface of a sea-gull's wing in this position. Next, Fig. 11 shows the tops of the four lowest feathers in Fig. 9, in mere outline; A separate (pulled off, so that they can be set side by side), B shut up close in the folded wing, C, opened in the spread wing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 9.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 10.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 11.]

76. And now, if you will yourselves watch a few birds in flight, or opening and closing their wings to prune them, you will soon know as much as is needful for our art purposes; and, which is far more desirable, feel how very little we know, to any purpose, of even the familiar creatures that are our companions.

Even what we have seen to-day[16] is more than appears to have been noticed by the most careful painters of the great schools; and you will continually fancy that I am inconsistent with myself in pressing you to learn, better than they, the anatomy of birds, while I violently and constantly urge you to refuse the knowledge of the anatomy of men. But you will find, as my system develops itself, that it is absolutely consistent throughout. I don't mean, by telling you not to study human anatomy, that you are not to know how many fingers and toes you have, nor how you can grasp and walk with them; and, similarly, when you look at a bird, I wish you to know how many claws and wing-feathers it has, and how it grips and flies with them. Of the bones, in either, I shall show you little; and of the muscles, nothing but what can be seen in the living creature, nor, often, even so much.

[16] Large and somewhat carefully painted diagrams were shown at the lecture, which I cannot engrave but for my complete edition.

77. And accordingly, when I now show you this sketch of my favorite Holbein, and tell you that it is entirely disgraceful he should not know what a wing was, better, I don't mean that it is disgraceful he should not know the anatomy of it, but that he should never have looked at it to see how the feathers lie.

Now Holbein paints men gloriously, but never looks at birds; Gibbons, the wood-cutter, carves birds, but can't men;--of the two faults the last is the worst; but the right is in looking at the whole of nature in due comparison, and with universal candor and tenderness.

78. At the whole of nature, I say, not at _super_-nature--at what you suppose to be above the visible nature about you. If you are not inclined to look at the wings of birds, which G.o.d has given you to handle and to see, much less are you to contemplate, or draw imaginations of, the wings of angels, which you can't see. Know your own world first--not denying any other, but being quite sure that the place in which you are now put is the place with which you are now concerned; and that it will be wiser in you to think the G.o.ds themselves may appear in the form of a dove, or a swallow, than that, by false theft from the form of dove or swallow, you can represent the aspect of G.o.ds.

79. One sweet instance of such simple conception, in the end of the Odyssey, must surely recur to your minds in connection with our subject of to-day, but you may not have noticed the recurrent manner in which Homer insists on the thought. When Ulysses first bends and strings his bow, the vibration of the chord is shrill, "like the note of a swallow." A poor and unwarlike simile, it seems! But in the next book, when Ulysses stands with his bow lifted, and Telemachus has brought the lances, and laid them at his feet, and Athena comes to his side to encourage him,--do you recollect the gist of her speech? "You fought,"

she says, "nine years for the sake of Helen, and for another's house:--now, returned, after all those wanderings, and under your own roof, for it, and its treasures, will you not fight, then?" And she herself flies up to the house-roof, and thence, _in the form of the swallow_, guides the arrows of vengeance for the violation of the sanct.i.ties of home.

80. To-day, then, I believe verily for the first time, I have been able to put before you some means of guidance to understand the beauty of the bird which lives with you in your own houses, and which purifies for you, from its insect pestilence, the air that you breathe. Thus the sweet domestic thing has done, for men, at least these four thousand years. She has been their companion, not of the home merely, but of the hearth, and the threshold; companion only endeared by departure, and showing better her loving-kindness by her faithful return. Type sometimes of the stranger, she has softened us to hospitality; type always of the suppliant, she has enchanted us to mercy; and in her feeble presence, the cowardice, or the wrath, of sacrilege has changed into the fidelities of sanctuary. Herald of our summer, she glances through our days of gladness; numberer of our years, she would teach us to apply our hearts to wisdom;--and yet, so little have we regarded her, that this very day, scarcely able to gather from all I can find told of her enough to explain so much as the unfolding of her wings, I can tell you nothing of her life--nothing of her journeying: I cannot learn how she builds, nor how she chooses the place of her wandering, nor how she traces the path of her return. Remaining thus blind and careless to the true ministries of the humble creature whom G.o.d has really sent to serve us, we in our pride, thinking ourselves surrounded by the pursuivants of the sky, can yet only invest them with majesty by giving them the calm of the bird's motion, and shade of the bird's plume:--and after all, it is well for us, if, when even for G.o.d's best mercies, and in His temples marble-built, we think that, "with angels and archangels, and all the company of Heaven, we laud and magnify His glorious name"--well for us, if our attempt be not only an insult, and His ears open rather to the inarticulate and unintended praise, of "the Swallow, twittering from her straw-built shed."

LECTURE III.

THE DABCHICKS.

81. I believe that somewhere I have already observed, but permit myself, for immediate use, to repeat what I cannot but think the sagacious observation,--that the arrangement of any sort of animals must be, to say the least, imperfect, if it be founded only on the characters of their feet. And, of all creatures, one would think birds were those which, continually dispensing with the use of their feet, would require for their cla.s.sification some attention also to be paid to their bodies and wings,--not to say their heads and tails.

Nevertheless, the ornithological arrangement at present in vogue may suffice for most scientific persons; but in grouping birds, so that the groups may be understood and remembered by children, I must try to make them a little more generally descriptive.

82. In talking of parrots, for instance, it is only a small part of the creature's nature which is told by its scientific name of 'Scansor,' or 'Climber.' That it only clutches with its claws, and does not s.n.a.t.c.h or strike with them;--that it helps itself about with its beak, on branches, or bars of cage, in an absurd manner, as if partly imagining itself hung up in a larder, are by no means the most vital matters about the bird. Whereas, that its beak is always extremely short, and is bent down so roundly that the angriest parrot cannot peck, but only _bite_, if you give it a chance; that it _can_ bite, pinch, or otherwise apply the mechanism of a pair of nut-crackers from the back of its head, with effect; that it has a little black tongue capable of much talk; above all, that it is mostly gay in plumage, often to vulgarity, and always to pertness;--all these characters should surely be represented to the apprehensive juvenile mind, in sum; and not merely the bird's climbing qualities.

83. Again, that the race of birds called in Latin 'Rasores' _do_, in the search for their food, usually scratch, and kick out their legs behind, living for the most part in gravelly or littery places, of which the hidden treasures are only to be discovered in that manner, seems to me no supremely interesting custom of the animal's life, but only a _manner_ of its household, or threshold, economy. But that the tribe, on the whole, is unambitiously domestic, and never predatory; that they fly little and low, eat much of what they can pick up without trouble--and are _themselves_ always excellent eating;--yet so exemplary in their own domestic cares and courtesies that one is ashamed to eat them except in eggs;--that their plumage is for the most part warm brown, delicately and even bewitchingly spotty;--and that, in the goodliest species, the spots become variegated, and inlaid as in a Byzantine pavement, deepening to imperial purple and azure, and lightening into l.u.s.ter of innumerable eyes;--all this, I hold, very clearly and positively, should be explained to children as a part of science, quite as exact, and infinitely more gracious, than that which reckons up the whole tribe of loving and luminous creatures under the feebly descriptive term of 'Scratchers.'

I will venture therefore to recommend my younger readers, in cla.s.sing birds, to think of them literally from top to toe--from toe to top I should say,--foot, body, and head, studying, with the body, the wings that bear it; and with the head, what brains it can bring to bear on practical matters, and what sense on sentimental. But indeed, primarily, you have to consider whether the bird altogether may not be little more than a fat, cheerful little stomach, in a spotted waistcoat, and with legs to it. That is the main definition of a great many birds--meant to eat all day, chiefly, grubs, or grain--not at all, unless under wintry and calamitous conditions, meant to fast painfully, or be in concern about their food. Faultless in digestion--dinner lasting all day long, with the delight of social intercourse--various chirp and chatter. Flying or fluttering in a practical, not stately, manner: hopping and creeping intelligently. Sociable to man extremely, building and nestling and rustling about him,--prying and speculating, curiously watchful of him at his work, if likely to be profitable to themselves, or even sometimes in mere pitying sympathy, and wonder how such a wingless and beakless creature can do _any_thing.[17]

[17] Compare 'Paradise of Birds,' (song to the young Roc, page 67,) and see close of lecture for notes on that book.

84. The balance of this kind of bird on its legs is a very important part of its--diagnosis; (we must have a fine word now and then!) Its action on the wing, is mere flutter or flirt, in and out of the hedge, or over it; but its manner of perch, or literally 'bien-seance,' is admirable matter of interest. So also in the birds which are on the water what these are on land; picking up anything anywhere; lazy and fortunate, mostly, themselves; fat, floating, daintiest darlings;--_their_ balance on the water, also, and under it, in 'ducking,' a most essential part of their business and being.

85. Then, directly opposed to these, in both kinds, you have the birds which must fast long, and fly far, and watch or fight for their food.