Love's Meinie: Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds

65. I say you shall see; but indeed you have often seen, and felt,—at least with your hands, if not with your shoulders,—when you chanced to be holding the sheet of a sail.

I have said that I never got into scrapes by blaming people wrongly; but I often do by praising them wrongly. I never praised, without qualification, but one scientific book in my life (that I remember)—this of Dr. Pettigrew's on the Wing;[12 - "On the Physiology of Wings." Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Vol. xxvi., Part ii. I cannot sufficiently express either my wonder or regret at the petulance in which men of science are continually tempted into immature publicity, by their rivalship with each other. Page after page of this book, which, slowly digested and taken counsel upon, might have been a noble contribution to natural history, is occupied with dispute utterly useless to the reader, on the question of the priority of the author, by some months, to a French savant, in the statement of a principle which neither has yet proved; while page after page is rendered worse than useless to the reader by the author's passionate endeavor to contradict the ideas of unquestionably previous investigators. The problem of flight was, to all serious purpose, solved by Borelli in 1680, and the following passage is very notable as an example of the way in which the endeavor to obscure the light of former ages too fatally dims and distorts that by which modern men of science walk, themselves. "Borelli, and all who have written since his time, are unanimous in affirming that the horizontal transference of the body of the bird is due to the perpendicular vibration of the wings, and to the yielding of the posterior or flexible margins of the wings in an upward direction, as the wings descend. I" (Dr. Pettigrew) "am, however, disposed to attribute it to the fact (1st), that the wings, both when elevated and depressed, leap forwards in curves, those curves uniting to form a continuous waved track; (2d), to the tendency which the body of the bird has to swing forwards, in a more or less horizontal direction, when once set in motion; (3d), to the construction of the wings; they are elastic helices or screws, which twist and untwist while they vibrate, and tend to bear upwards and onwards any weight suspended from them; (4th), to the action of the air on the under surfaces of the wings; (5th), to the ever-varying power with which the wings are urged, this being greatest at the beginning of the down-stroke, and least at the end of the up one; (6th), to the contraction of the voluntary muscles and elastic ligaments, and to the effect produced by the various inclined surfaces formed by the wings during their oscillations; (7th), to the weight of the bird—weight itself, when acting upon wings, becoming a propelling power, and so contributing to horizontal motion."I will collect these seven reasons for the forward motion, in the gist of them, which I have marked by italics, that the reader may better judge of their collective value. The bird is carried forward, according to Dr. Pettigrew—1. Because its wings leap forward.2. Because its body has a tendency to swing forward.3. Because its wings are screws so constructed as to screw upwards and onwards any body suspended from them.4. Because the air reacts on the under surfaces of the wings.5. Because the wings are urged with ever-varying power.6. Because the voluntary muscles contract.7. Because the bird is heavy.What must be the general conditions of modern science, when it is possible for a man of great experimental knowledge and practical ingenuity, to publish nonsense such as this, becoming, to all intents and purposes, insane, in the passion of his endeavor to overthrow the statements of his rival? Had he merely taken patience to consult any elementary scholar in dynamics, he would have been enabled to understand his own machines, and develop, with credit to himself, what had been rightly judged or noticed by others.] and now I must qualify my praise considerably, discovering, when I examined the book farther, that the good doctor had described the motion of a bird as resembling that of a kite, without ever inquiring what, in a bird, represented that somewhat important part of a kite, the string. You will, however, find the book full of important observations, and illustrated by valuable drawings. But the point in question you must settle for yourselves, and you easily may. Some of you perhaps, knew, in your time, better than the doctor, how a kite stopped; but I do not doubt that a great many of you also know, now, what is much more to the purpose, how a ship gets along. I will take the simplest, the most natural, the most beautiful of sails,—the lateen sail of the Mediterranean.

66. I draw it rudely in outline, as it would be set for a side-wind on the boat you probably know best,—the boat of burden on the Lake of Geneva (Fig. 3), not confusing the drawing by adding the mast, which, you know, rakes a little, carrying the yard across it (a). Then, with your permission, I will load my boat thus, with a few casks of Vevay vintage—and, to keep them cool, we will put an awning over them, so (b). Next, as we are classical scholars, instead of this rustic stern of the boat, meant only to run easily on a flat shore, we will give it an Attic εμβολον [Greek: embolon] (c). (We have no business, indeed, yet, to put an εμβολον [Greek: embolon] on a boat of burden, but I hope some day to see all our ships of war loaded with bread and wine, instead of artillery.) Then I shade the entire form (c); and, lastly, reflect it in the water (d)—and you have seen something like that before, besides a boat, haven't you?

Fig. 3.

There is the gist of the whole business for you, put in very small space; with these only differences: in a boat, the air strikes the sail; in a bird, the sail strikes the air: in a boat, the force is lateral, and in a bird downwards; and it has its sail on both sides. I shall leave you to follow out the mechanical problem for yourselves, as far as the mere resolution of force is concerned. My business, as a painter, is only with the exquisite organic weapon that deals with it.

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 ship's loss, is the bird's gain; whatever tendency the ship has to leeway, is all given to the bird's support, so that every atom[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.] of force in the blow is of service.

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 circumstances 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.

Fig. 4.

Now for the manner of the support. You must all know well the look of the machicolated parapets in mediæval castles. You know they are carried on rows of small projecting buttresses 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 spaces, 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.

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 space 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 quantity of impulse, and exactly the quantity 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 - See App. p. 112, § 145.] 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 noble weapon we may with little pains understand.

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.

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 space 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 knobs 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 masses 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 masses, 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 - 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.]

Fig. 7.

Fig. 8.

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.

Fig. 9.

Fig. 10.

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

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 God 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 gods 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 gods.

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 sanctities 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 God 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 God'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 classification 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 snatch 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 luster 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 classing 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 anything.[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-séance,' 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. Not stomachic in profile; far from cheerful in disposition; more or less lonely in habit; or, if gregarious, out of the way of men. The balance of these on the wing, is no less essential a part of their picturing, than that of the buntings, robins, and ducks on the foot, or breast: and therefore, especially the position of the head in flying.

86. Accordingly, for complete ornithology, every bird must be drawn, as every flower for good botany, both in profile, and looking down upon it: but for the perchers, the standing profile is the most essential; and for the falcons and gulls, the flying plan,—the outline of the bird, as it would be seen looking down on it, when its wings were full-spread.

Then, in connection with these general outlines, we want systematic plan and profile of the foot and head; but since we can't have everything at once, let us say the plan of the foot, and profile of the head, quite accurately given; and for every bird consistently, and to scale.

Profile and plan in outline; then, at least the head in light and shade, from life, so as to give the expression of the eye. Fallacious, this latter, often, as an indication of character; but deeply significant of habit and power: thus the projecting, full, bead, which enables the smaller birds to see the smallest insect or grain with good in it, gives them much of their bright and often arch expression; while the flattened iris under the beetling brow of the falcons,—projecting, not in frown, but as roof, to shade the eye from interfering skylight,—gives them their apparently threatening and ominous gaze; the iris itself often wide and pale, showing as a lurid saturnine ring under the shadow of the brow plumes.

87. I speak of things that are to be: very assuredly they will be done, some day—not far off, by painters educated as gentlemen, in the strictest sense—working for love and truth, and not for lust and gold. Much has already been done by good and earnest draughtsmen, who yet had not received the higher painter's education, which would have enabled them to see the bird in the greater lights and laws of its form. It is only here and there, by Dürer, Holbein, Carpaccio, or other such men, that we get a living bird rightly drawn;[18 - The Macaw in Sir Joshua's portrait of the Countess of Derby is a grand example.] but we may be greatly thankful for the unspared labor, and attentive skill, with which many illustrations of ornithology have been produced within the last seventy or eighty years. Far beyond rivalship among them, stands Le Vaillant's monograph, or dualgraph, on the Birds of Paradise, and Jays: its plates, exquisitely engraved, and colored with unwearying care by hand, are insuperable in plume-texture, hue, and action,—spoiled in effect, unhappily, by the vulgar boughs for sustentation. Next, ranks the recently issued history of the birds of Lombardy; the lithographs by Herr Oscar Dressler, superb, but the coloring (chromo-lithotint) poor: and then, the self-taught, but in some qualities greatly to be respected, art of Mr. Gould. Of which, I would fain have spoken with gratitude and admiration in his lifetime; had not I known, that the qualified expressions necessary for true estimate of his published plates, would have caused him more pain, than any general praise could have counteracted or soothed. Without special criticism, and rejoicing in all the pleasure which any of my young pupils may take in his drawing,—only guarding them, once for all, against the error of supposing it exemplary as art,—I use his plates henceforward for general reference; finding also that, following Mr. Gould's practical and natural arrangement, I can at once throw together in groups, easily comprehensible by British children, all they are ever likely to see of British or Britain-visitant birds: which I find fall, with frank casting, into these following divisions, not in any important matters varying from the usual ones, and therefore less offensive, I hope, to the normal zoologist than my heresies in botany; while yet they enable me to make what I have to say about our native birds more simply presentable to young minds.[19 - See the notes on classification, in the Appendix to the volume; published, together with the Preface, simultaneously with this number.]