CONSTANTINOPLE has one grace and gayety peculiar to itself, that comes from an infinite number of birds of every kind, for which the Turks nourish a warm sentiment and regard. Mosques, groves, old walls, gardens, palaces all resound with song, the whistling and twittering of birds; everywhere wings are fluttering and life and harmony abound. The sparrows enter the houses boldly, and eat out of women's and children's hands, Swallows nest over the cafÉ doors, and under the arches of the bazaars; Pigeons in innumerable swarms, maintained by legacies from sultans and private individuals, form garlands of black and white along the cornices of the cupolas and around the terraces of the minarets; Sea-gulls dart and play over the water; thousands of Turtle-doves coo amorously among the cypresses in the cemeteries; Crows croak about the Castle of the Seven Towers; Halcyons come and go in long files between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora; and Storks sit upon the cupolas of the mausoleums. For the Turk, each one of these birds has a gentle meaning, or a benignant virtue: Turtle-doves are favorable to lovers, Swallows keep away fire from the roofs where they build their nests, Storks make yearly pilgrimage to Mecca, Halcyons carry the souls of the faithful to Paradise. Thus he protects and feeds them, through a sentiment of gratitude and piety; and they enliven the house, the sea, and the sepulchre. Every quarter of Stamboul is full of the noise of them, bringing to the city a sense of the pleasures of country life, and continually relishing the soul with a reminder of nature.

There are several kinds of animals, points out Cosmos, that have never swallowed water. Among these are the Lamas of Patagonia and certain Gazelles of the far east, and a considerable number of reptiles—Serpents, Lizards, and certain Batrachians—that live and flourish where there is no moisture. A kind of Mouse of the arid plains of western America also exists where moisture is said to be unknown. In the London Zoological Gardens a Paroquet lived fifty-two years without drinking a drop, and some naturalists believe that Hares take no liquid except the dew that sometimes forms on the grass they eat. Even Cows and Goats in France, in the neighborhood of the LozÈre, almost never drink, yet they produce the milk from which is made the famous Roquefort cheese.