Rock Island Argus., 1906-07-21
STRENGTH OF BIRDS
THE EAGLE CAN CARRY THREE TIMES
ITS OWN WEIGHT.

An Ostrich Can Break a Mans Thigh
or the Leg OF a Horse With n Kick.
Wonderful Speed of the Winged
Navigators of the Air.
We despise the struggling, fiuttering.
quarrelSome sparrow as good for
nothing street arab; yet the sparrow is
in many respects mans superior. Its
blood temperature is considerably high
er than that of man or any other man.
NAL; it is far more active, capable of
much greater eXertion. 1t can do with
less sleep, can live where man would
starve. Its plumage is so beautifully
adapted to all acquisitions that it acts
as a warm blanket in winter, 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 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
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. 1t does what man cannot dot
sews without needle or hands. Using
its beak, it sews together leaves OF
trees with living fibers 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 weighiSg no more than
fourteen pounds lifting and carrying
off young pig which weighed no less
than forty-two pounds. How many
men could even ssagger along the
ground carrying three times their own
weight in their hands?
thing. 1t 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 a 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 q nest 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. 1t was home again within one
hour and eight minutes. It's speed was,
therefore, 1881 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 uncounted miles Of
the high atmosphere, arriving year by
year with most absolute accuracy at
their distant destinations. Young
cuckoos leave England after their par
ents and find their way unaided to At
rica. How do they do it?
Birds are weatherwise beyond all
creatures. 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 GER
tain sign of rain before morning.
Some migrating birds have the Curl
Gus 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 a 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 half pounds.-London An