The beautiful motions of birds.
The swallow.
How beautiful are the motions of many of the birds as they fly in the air! How easily and gracefully their wings work! See that bird as it goes up and up; and now see it as it makes a turn, and comes down so swiftly on its outstretched wings, taking a beautiful sweep off at a distance; and then up it goes again to come down, in the same way that boys do when they travel up a long hill to slide down so swiftly on their sleds. The swallow, as he has this fine sport, is, at the same time, getting his living. As he skims along close to the ground or the water, as represented here, quick as thought he catches any unlucky fly that happens to be in his way.
The humming-bird.
Especially beautiful are the motions of the humming-bird. See him as he stops before some flower fluttering on his wings, or as he darts with them from one flower to another. The muscles of his wings are very nimble workmen. Our muscles can make no motions as quick as these.
The structure of feathers.
Did you ever examine a feather from a bird’s wing to see what a curiously-made thing it is? The quill part of it is very strong, but, at the same time, light. The plume or feather part is quite strong also. It is made up of a great many very thin and delicate flat leaves, as we may call them, which are locked together curiously by fine teeth on their edges. If you separate them they soon come together again, and are locked as fast as ever. You can see the teeth by which they hold on to each other very well with a common microscope.
The delicacy of a bat’s wing.
No wonder that the bat can fly so swiftly with such very broad and light wings as he has. Did you ever observe how a bat’s wing is made? It is a very curious and really beautiful thing. It is an exceedingly fine, thin skin, on a frame-work of long, slender bones. These are to it what sticks of whalebone are to an umbrella; and the wings can be folded up somewhat as an umbrella is. This is done whenever the bat is not flying. When it is on the ground it is very awkward in its movements. It can not get a start to fly, and so it pushes itself along with its hind feet, at the same time pulling by the hooks in its wings, which it puts forward, first one and then the other, hooking them into the ground. It never likes to get upon the ground, and it takes its rest always, as you see represented on the previous page, by hanging itself up by the two hooks in its wings.