The Bird :: THE FIRST FLUTTERINGS OF THE WING.

THE FIRST FLUTTERINGS OF THE WING.

There is never a man, unlettered, ignorant, exhausted, insensible, who can deny himself a sentiment of reverence, I might almost say of terror, on entering the halls of our Museum of Natural History.

No foreign collection, as far as my knowledge extends, produces this impression.

Others, undoubtedly, as the superb museum of Leyden, are richer in particular branches; but none are more complete, none more harmonious. This sublime harmony is felt instinctively; it imposes and seizes on the mind. The inattentive traveller, the chance visitor, is unwillingly affected; he pauses, and he dreams. In the presence of this vast enigma, of this immense hieroglyph which for the first time is displayed before him, he may consider himself fortunate if he can read a character or spell a letter. How often have different classes of persons, surprised and tormented by such fantastic forms, inquired of us their meaning! A word has set them in the right path, a simple indication charmed them; they have gone away contented, and promising themselves to return. On the other hand, they who traversed this ocean of unknown objects without comprehending them, have departed fatigued and melancholy.

Let us express our wish that an administration so enlightened, so high in the ranks of science, may return to the original constitution of the museum, which appointed gardiens dÉmonstrateurs—attendants who were also cicerones—and will only admit as guardians of this treasure men who can understand it, and, on occasion, become its interpreters.

Another wish we dare to form is, that by the side of our renowned naturalists they will place those courageous navigators, those persevering travellers who, by their labours, their fruits, by a hundred times hazarding their lives, have procured for us these costly spoils. Whatever their intrinsic value, it is, perhaps, increased by the heroism and grandeur of heart of these adventurers. This charming colibris,[14] madam, a winged sapphire in which you could see only a useless object of personal decoration, do you know that an Azara[15] or a Lesson[16] has brought it from murderous forests where one breathes nothing but death? This magnificent tiger, whose skin you admire, are you aware that before it could be planted here, there was a necessity that it should be sought after in the jungles, encountered face to face, fired at, struck in the forehead by the intrepid Levaillant?[17] These illustrious travellers, ardent lovers of nature, often without means, often without assistance, have followed it into the deserts, watched and surprised it in its mysterious retreats, voluntarily enduring thirst and hunger and incredible fatigues; never complaining, thinking themselves too well recompensed, full of devotion, of gratitude at each fresh discovery; regretting nothing in such an event, not even the death of La Perouse[18] or Mungo Park,[19] death by shipwreck, or death among the savages.

Bid them live again here in our midst! If their lonely life flowed free from Europe for Europe's benefit, let their images be placed in the centre of the grateful crowd, with a brief exposition of their fortunate discoveries, their sufferings, and their sublime courage. More than one young man shall be moved by the sight of these heroes, and depart to dream enthusiastically of following in their footsteps.

Herein lies the twofold grandeur of the place. Its treasures were sent by heroic men, and they were collected, classified, and harmonized by illustrious physicists, to whom all things flowed as to a legitimate centre, and whom their position, no less than their intellect, induced to accomplish here the centralization of nature.

In the last century, the great movement of the sciences revolved around a man of genius, influential by his rank, his social relations, his fortune—M. the Count de Buffon. All the donations of men of science, travellers, and kings, came to him, and by him were classified in this museum. In our own days a grander spectacle has fixed upon this spot the eager eyes of all the nations of the world, when two mighty men (or rather two systems), Cuvier and Geoffroy, made this their battle-field. All the world enrolled itself on the one side or the other; all took part in the strife, and despatched to the Museum, either in support of or opposition to the experiments, books, animals, or facts previously unknown. Hence these collections, which one might suppose to be dead, are really living; they still throb with the recollections of the fray, are still animated by the lofty minds which invoked all these beings to be the witnesses of their prolific struggle.

It is no fortuitous gathering yonder. It consists of closely connected series, formed and systematically arranged by profound thinkers. Those species which form the most curious transitions between the genera are richly represented. There you may see, far more fully than elsewhere, what LinnÉ and Lamarck have said, that just as our museums gradually grew richer, became more complete, exhibited fewer lacunÆ, we should be constrained to acknowledge that nature does nothing abruptly, in all things proceeds by gentle and insensible transitions. Wherever we seem to see in her works a bound, a chasm, a sudden and inharmonious interval, let us ascribe the fault to ourselves; that blank is our own ignorance.

Let us pause for a few moments at the solemn passages where life uncertain seems still to oscillate, where Nature appears to question herself, to examine her own volition. "Shall I be fish or mammal?" says the creature. It falters, and remains a fish, but warm-blooded; belongs to the mild race of lamentins and seals. "Shall I be bird or quadruped?" A great question; a perplexed hesitancy—a prolonged and changeful combat. All its various phases are discussed; the diverse solutions of the problems naÏvely suggested and realized by fantastic beings like the ornithorhynchus, which has nothing of the bird but the beak; like the poor bat, a tender and innocent animal in its family-circle, but whose undefined form makes it grim-looking and unfortunate. You perceive that nature has sought in it the wing, and found only a hideous membranous skin, which nevertheless performs a wing's function:

"I am a bird; see you my wings?"

Yes; but even the wing does not make the bird.

Place yourself towards the centre of the museum, and close to the clock. There you perceive, on your left, the first rudiment of the wing in the penguin of the southern pole, and its brother, the Arctic auk, one degree more developed; scaly winglets, whose glittering feathers rather recall the fish than the bird. On land the creature is feeble; but while earth is difficult for it, air is impossible. Do not complain too warmly. Its prescient mother destines it for the Polar Seas, where it will only need to paddle. She clothes it carefully in a fine coat of fat and an impenetrable covering. She will have it warm among the icebergs. Which is the better means? It seems as if she had hesitated, had wavered. By the side of the booby we see with surprise an essay at quite another genus, yet one not less remarkable as a maternal precaution. I refer to a very rare gorfou—which I have seen in no other museum—attired in the rough skin of a quadruped, resembling a goat's fleece, but more shining, perhaps, in the living animal, and certainly impermeable to water.

To link together the birds which do not fly, we must find the connecting point in the navigator of the desert—the bird-camel, the ostrich, resembling the camel itself in its internal structure. At least, if its imperfect wings cannot raise it above the earth, they assist it powerfully in walking, and endow it with extraordinary swiftness: it is the sail with which it skims its arid African ocean.

Let us return to the penguin, the true starting-point of the series—to the penguin, whose rudimentary pinion cannot be employed as a sail, does not aid it in walking, is only an indication, like a memorial of nature.

She loosens her bonds, she rises with difficulty in a first attempt at flight by means of two strange figures, which appear to us both grotesque and pretentious. The penguin is not of these; a simple, silly creature, you see that it never had the ambition to fly. But here are they who emancipate themselves, who seem in quest of the adornment or the grace of motion. The gorfou may be taken for a penguin which has decided to quit its condition. It assumes a coquettish tuft of plumes, that throws into high relief its ugliness. The shapeless puffin, which seems the very caricature of a caricature, the paroquet, resembles it in its great beak, rudely chipped, but without edge or strength. Tail-less and ill-balanced, it may always be upset by the weight of its large head. It ventures, nevertheless, to flutter about, at the hazard of toppling over. It swoops nobly close to the surface of earth, and is, perhaps, the envy of the penguins and the seals. Sometimes it even risks itself at sea—ill-fated ship, which the lightest breeze will wreck!

It is, however, impossible to deny that the first flight is taken. Birds of various kinds carry on the enterprise more successfully. The rich genus of divers (BrachypterÆ), in its species widely different, connects the sailor-birds with the natatores, or swimmers: those, with wings perfected, with a bold and secure flight, accomplish the longest voyages; these, still clothed with the glittering feathers of the penguin, frisk and sport at the bottom of the seas. They want but fins and respiratory organs to become actual fishes. They are alternately masters of both elements, air and water.

TRIUMPH OF THE WING.

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