"
W. C. BRYANT.
THE FIFTH DAY.
FLYING FOWL.
"_Gavest Thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers
unto the ostrich?_"
"_Doth the hawk fly by Thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the
south?_"
"_Doth the eagle mount up at Thy command, and make her nest on high?_"--JOB
xxxix. 13, 26, 27.
"_The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is
come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land._"--SONG OF SOLOMON
ii. 12.
It was on the FIFTH DAY of Creation that the silence was broken by the
voice of birds. We are so accustomed to the various cries of animals,
the buzzing of insects, and above all to the chirping and twittering and
singing of birds, that we can hardly imagine what a voiceless world would
be like.
I have heard that far away in New Zealand, travellers who try to make
their way through the great tangle of trees and creepers which is called
the "Bush," speak of the silence and loneliness of the dense forests as
dreadful, and they particularly mention that there is no voice of bird to
be heard there. Very different is a place I know, where, although the trees
in which they perch are by the roadside, and noisy carts and carriages are
coming and going all day long, yet the sparrows overhead keep up such a
constant chatter and flutter that once as I passed that way a countryman
looked up at the trees and smiled, and said to me, "Plenty of company up
there!"
When I told the children this they were much amused, and I am sure they
thought it would be very dull never to hear the crowing of a cock or the
"quack, quack" of a duck--to say nothing of the soft cooing of doves in the
wood, and the sweet, rich notes of the thrushes and blackbirds.
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