... The little birds are guided in their flight through the
waste, lone wilderness of the sky, and over wide seas, without a compass
or a map or a path, by His counsel and will. And they obey that guidance
without the slightest inclination to swerve from it or seek a way of their
own....
"Migratory birds passing from Africa to Europe over the sea, often alight
on ships bound in that direction. Not unfrequently ship-captains tell us
that they have seen birds of prey, hawks, and owls, appearing on the masts
on such occasions in the company of swallows, goldfinches, and chaffinches;
and yet the cruel birds never touched the innocent ones. The migratory
instinct seems to subdue for a season the predatory instinct."
I want to tell you more about swallows, and especially a true but sad
story of a tame one; but first we will speak of one more group, the
Swimming-birds. You may have often noticed a duck's foot, and seen how the
"web," or skin between the toes, can be folded up like a fan; or spread
out, when the bird is swimming; Geese, Swans, Sea-gulls, the beautiful
great Albatross, all these and a great many more of this family; they have
a kind of water-wing, which cleaves its way through the streams, and most
of them can also fly, although they are heavy birds. I have seen a flock of
grey geese sailing on the sea, and the same flock at sunset coming home by
a quicker way, looking like dark specks against the evening sky; but it is
only wild geese that will fly so far.
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