Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1894-09-20

pigeon and more beautiful only because
II las more expanse of wing and feath-
ers on which to be beautiful; the kea,
that wars ON the sheep. fastening itself
on the back of the live sheep and not
relaxing, but pecking its way through
the wool and the flesh until the sheep Is
dead and the beak reaches the fat
around the kidneys for which this bird
has a special appetite--a habit learned
probably by pecl1.ng at the butchered
sheep around the door of the shepherds
hut; the storm petrol, like flake of
the midnight; the crested penguin; the
paradise duck, its name taken from the
fact that its richness of color suggests
tho Edenic-and birds with all wealth
of feather, and curiosity of beak, and
eccentricity of habit, and defense OF
claw, and audacity of fight, and bear
ing all colors-the white running into
crimson, like snow melting into the
fire; the blue as if in some higher flight
it had brushed against the heavens, or
yellow as if il had nested among cow
slips and buttercups, or spotted and
fringed and ribboned and afiame until
IneIe are uO luOIO 1Ouht1AAo VI AeA0A0hNO
into which they can possibly dip their
wings Oh, for some scientific gunner
to do for New Zealand what Audubon
did for Americai But, what | never
knew before, the native birds are dying
out before the foreign birds that have
been introduced, and the native flowers
are dying out before the foreign flowers.
Although now New Zealand is so
abundant in all styles of quadrupeds, it
had not, when discovered, a single quad
ruped except the rat, and foreign rat
having been introduced the aboriginal
rat has nearly disappeared. The English
grass brought here has killed the native
grass. The birds of America, Europe
and Asia imported here have killed
the birds of New Zealand. All the earth
has been ransacked and all the botanical
and ichthyological and ornithological
and geological worlds have been called
npon to make up the present and the
future Of New ZealaDd.
Yea, come to this wonderland, /" all
who want to see enterprise aud advance
ment. Daily newspapers, with scholar.
ly men in editorial chairs and reporters
capable of pumping interviews from
the most retioent and cautious and make
sphinx speak. Two Thousand miles Of
railroad. Over /. 900 schools with com.
pulsory education, building up intelli-
gence for the present and affording no
opportunity for ignorance in the next
century. Baths, thermal and chemical,
miles long and capable of putting an
end to rheumatisms and sciaticas and
invalidisms that have deied the min
eral hydropathics of the continents
Lake Taupo, so deep that no plummet has
ever touched bottom and occupying the
hollow of an extinct volcano, as a bright
child might fall to sleep in the bed pre-
viously occupied by grim giant. Yea,
come to New Zealand, the naturalists,
the artists and the students of men and
things, and come quickly, for nothing
remains here as 1t originally was ex.
cept the mountains, and even the noun
tains, as ON the night of June 0, 1885,
when the walls of ''the terraces" fell
down at the blowing Of the trumpets Of
terror. proved themselves no longer to
be the everlasting hills.
7. De WITT TALMAGE.