Loves Meinie | Page 7

term [Greek: xonthos], which, as I
understand their use of it, exactly implies the indescribable silky brown,
the groundwork of all other color in so many small birds, which is
indistinct among green leaves, and absolutely identifies itself with dead
ones, or with mossy stems.
19. I think I show it you more accurately in the robin's back than I
could in any other bird; its mode of transition into more brilliant color
is, in him, elementarily simple; and although there is nothing, or rather
because there is nothing, in his plumage, of interest like that of tropical
birds, or even of our own game-birds, I think it will be desirable for
you to learn first from the breast of the robin what a feather is. Once
knowing that, thoroughly, we can further learn from the swallow what a
wing is; from the chough what a beak is; and from the falcon what a
claw is.
I must take care, however, in neither of these last two particulars, to do
injustice to our little English friend here; and before we come to his
feathers, must ask you to look at his bill and his feet.
20. I do not think it is distinctly enough felt by us that the beak of a bird
is not only its mouth, but its hand, or rather its two hands. For, as its
arms and hands are turned into wings, all it has to depend upon, in
economical and practical life, is its beak. The beak, therefore, is at once
its sword, its carpenter's tool-box, and its dressing-case; partly also its
musical instrument; all this besides its function of seizing and preparing
the food, in which functions alone it has to be a trap, carving-knife, and
teeth, all in one.
21. It is this need of the beak's being a mechanical tool which chiefly
regulates the form of a bird's face, as opposed to a four-footed animal's.

If the question of food were the only one, we might wonder why there
were not more four-footed creatures living on seeds than there are; or
why those that do--field-mice and the like--have not beaks instead of
teeth. But the fact is that a bird's beak is by no means a perfect eating or
food-seizing instrument. A squirrel is far more dexterous with a nut
than a cockatoo; and a dog manages a bone incomparably better than an
eagle. But the beak has to do so much more! Pruning feathers, building
nests, and the incessant discipline in military arts, are all to be thought
of, as much as feeding.
Soldiership, especially, is a much more imperious necessity among
birds than quadrupeds. Neither lions nor wolves habitually use claws or
teeth in contest with their own species; but birds, for their partners,
their nests, their hunting-grounds, and their personal dignity, are nearly
always in contention; their courage is unequaled by that of any other
race of animals capable of comprehending danger; and their pertinacity
and endurance have, in all ages, made them an example to the brave,
and an amusement to the base, among mankind.
22. Nevertheless, since as sword, as trowel, or as pocket-comb, the
beak of the bird has to be pointed, the collection of seeds may be
conveniently intrusted to this otherwise penetrative instrument, and
such food as can only be obtained by probing crevices, splitting open
fissures, or neatly and minutely picking things up, is allotted,
pre-eminently, to the bird species.
The food of the robin, as you know, is very miscellaneous. Linnæus
says of the Swedish one, that it is "delectatus euonymi
baccis,"--"delighted with dogwood berries,"--the dogwood growing
abundantly in Sweden, as once in Forfarshire, where it grew, though
only a bush usually in the south, with trunks a foot or eighteen inches
in diameter, and the tree thirty feet high. But the Swedish robin's taste
for its berries is to be noted by you, because, first, the dogwood berry is
commonly said to be so bitter that it is not eaten by birds (Loudon,
"Arboretum," ii., 497, 1.); and, secondly, because it is a pretty
coincidence that this most familiar of household birds should feed
fondly from the tree which gives the housewife her spindle,--the proper

name of the dogwood in English, French, and German being alike
"Spindle-tree." It feeds, however, with us, certainly, most on worms
and insects. I am not sure how far the following account of its mode of
dressing its dinners may be depended on: I take it from an old book on
Natural History, but find it, more or less, confirmed by others: "It takes
a worm by one extremity in its beak, and beats it on the ground till the
inner part comes away. Then seizing it in a similar manner by the other
end, it entirely cleanses