unfortunate as foolish, has let itself be jostled from its cost hole beneath the thatch out into the glare of daylight, — crowd round the blinking stranger and unkindly jeer it from amongst them. These are the ground-floor tenants, our every-day walk acquaintances, who look up to crows as to Members of Congress, and think no mean thing of green parrots. And yet there are among them many of a notable plumage and song, more indeed than among the aristocracy of Volucres; just as, if the Indian proverb goes for aught, there are more pretty women among the lowest (the mehter) than any other caste. On the second floor, where nothing but clear ether checks their flight, swim the great eagles, the knightly falcons, and the vultures, — grand when on their wide, loose pinions they float and circle, — sordid only, like the gods of old, when they stoop to earth. These divide the peerage of the skies, and among them is universal a fine purity of color and form — a nobility of power. They are all princes among the feathered tribes, gentle and graceful as they wheel and recurve undisturbed in their own high domains, but fierce in battle and terribly swift when they shoot down to earth, their keen vision covering half a province, their cruel cry shrilling to the floors of heaven. See them now, with no quarry to pursue, no battle to fight, and mark the exceeding beauty of their motion. In tiers above each other the shrill-voiced kites, their sharp-cut wings bent into a bow, their tail, a third wing almost, spread out fanwise to the wind, — the vultures parallel, but wheeling in higher spheres on level pinions, — the hawk, with his strong bold flight, smiting his way up to the highest place; while far above him, where the sky-roof is cob webbed with white clouds, float dim specks, which in the distance seem
