For the pen too oft was weary,
In the wandering writer's hand,
As he roved through deep and dreary
Forests, in a distant land.
Show thy mercy, gentle reader,
Let him not entreat in vain;
It will be his strength's best feeder,
Should he ever go again.
And who knows, how soon complaining
Of a cold and wifeless home,
He may leave it, and again in
Equatorial regions roam.
C.W.
* * * * *
ON PRESERVING BIRDS FOR CABINETS
OF NATURAL HISTORY
Were you to pay as much attention to birds as the sculptor does to the
human frame, you would immediately see, on entering a museum, that the
specimens are not well done.
This remark will not be thought severe when you reflect that that which
once was a bird has probably been stretched, stuffed, stiffened and wired
by the hand of a common clown. Consider, likewise, how the plumage must
have been disordered by too much stretching or drying, and perhaps sullied,
or at least deranged, by the pressure of a coarse and heavy hand--plumage
which, ere life had fled from within it, was accustomed to be touched by
nothing rougher than the dew of heaven and the pure and gentle breath of
air.
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