The Press., 1906-11-07
STRENGTH OF BIRDS
THE EAGLE CAN CARRY THREE TIMES
 ITS OWN WEIGHT.

An Ostrich Can Break 8 Mans Thigh
 or the Leg of a Horse With a Kick
 Wonderful Speed of the Winged
 NavigatOrs of the Air.
 We despise the struggling, futtering Quarrelsome sparrow as a good for nothing street arab; yet the sparrow is in many respects mans superior. Its blood temperature is considerably high CT than that of man or any other man. nal; it is far more active, capable of much greater exertion. It can do with less sleep, can live where man would starve. It's plumage is so beautifully adapted to all acquisitions that it acts as a warm blanket in winter, a dust coat in summer, and in wet weather, owing to the oil glands at the bases of the feathers, as a macintosh.
 The same and more is true of birds as a class. In some ways they are the highest of all vertebrate creatures. They have, of course, the inestimable gift of flight which not only enables them to escape most of the dangers to which earth crawling creatures are subject, but also to speed at will over the whole earth.
 As architects birds far surpass all other wild creatures. A few animals and a number of insects and fish build dwellings for themselves and their young, but what can compare with the dainty, bottle shaped nest of the long tailed tit, the swinging home of the gold crested wren or the carefully plas- tered mud dwelling of the swallow?
 The Indian tailor bird goes further still. It does what man cannot do-it sews without needle or hands. Using its beak, 1t sews together leaves of trees with living f1bers of other plants, forming cone, which it lines with very soft material,
 Birds are possessed of enormous muscular power, far exceeding in some cases that of any other warm blooded creature. There is an instance on rec ord of an eagle weighing no more than fourteen pounds lifting and carrying off a young pig which weighed no less than forty-two pounds. How many men could even stagger along the ground carrying three times their own weight in their hands?
 The kick of an ostrich is a fearsome thing It will break a mans thigh or even the leg of a horse. The ostrich, too, is, for a short distance, the swift est runner of any creature. The top speed of q horse is about thirty-five miles an hour. An ostrich, it is esti- mated, can run for the first half mile at about forty-seven miles an hour.
 The speed of birds in the air is a miracle which man rarely takes the trouble to consider. A swallow which had pest in the gable of the railway station at Antwerp was taken thence and sent to Compiegne, in France, a distance of 14015 miles, and then re- leased. It was home again within one hour and eight minutes. Its speed was, therefore. 1281a miles an hour,
 More than equally marvellous is the way in which migrating birds of all kinds find their way in sunshine and darkness through unoounted miles of
 
 year with most absolute accuracy at their distant destinations. Young cuckoos leave England after their par ents and find their way unaided to Af- rica. How do they do it?
 Bir1s are weatherwise beyond all ersaFuras. Swans and other water birds seem to have some sixth sense which tells them when a wet season iS coming. Before such a time they build their nests higher than usual above water line, so that if flood comes the nest and eggs will not be washed away. The peacock knows overnight what the weather will be. His harsh scream before he goes to roost is a cer- tain sign of rain before morning.
 Some migrating birds have the curi- ous faculty of avoiding places infected by pestilence. Swallows, for instance, will never build where plague, cholera or yellow fever is raging. St. Au- gustine long ago noticed this and ex- horted his followers to 'shun wicked ness as swallows shun pestilent places,"
 We speak of dainty persons having mo more appetite than bird." No less appropriate phrase could be used. The bird tribe have, one and all, enor- nous appetites, A heron weighing four pounds has when shot disgorged two trout-one of two pounds, one of one and a half pounds.-London An swers.