INTRODUCTORY. 9 
     
    
   
   
    
     “Birds, the free tenants of land, and air, and 
     
     ocean,” are such because of their marvelous powers 
     
     of flight. The heavy-winged heron in his lumber- 
     
     ing flight still surpasses the speed of the fleetest 
     
     race—horse. The wild duck covers ninety miles 
     
     in an hour, and the duck hawk 150 miles in the 
     
     same time. The graceful swallow, in its ceaseless 
     
     wanderings through the blue fields of the summer 
     
     sky, travels a thousand miles in a day. And the 
     
     endless flittings of the minor bird tribes from spray 
     
     to spray, or darting into the sunny air for their 
     
     jewelled prey, are ever marvels of grace, and free- 
     
     dom, and velocity of movements. You watch the 
     
     eagle, with scarce moving pinions, sweep for miles 
     
     and miles along the breezy coast, and, although 
     
     you cannot Observe the movement, he exerts a 
     
     power sufficient to keep him from falling sixty-two 
     
     feet in a second. How tireless the exercise of 
     
     power put forth by the gull who wanders cease- 
     
     lessly for hours, and even days, over the restless 
     
     billow. 'l‘he albatross and the frigate bird will 
     
     venture more than a thousand miles from land 
     
     in their foraying expeditions. 
     
    

    
     It is this wonderful power of flight which makes 
     
    
   
   
    
     the Bird a mirrant chanwino its home with the 
     
     7 O b