Madam How and Lady Why (Yesterday's Classics) by Kingsley Charles

Author:Kingsley, Charles [Kingsley, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nature
ISBN: 9781599150239
Publisher: Yesterday's Classics
Published: 2010-11-10T20:28:39.548000+00:00

Now, it is these very Guacharo birds which are to me the most wonderful part of the story. The Indians kill and eat them for their fat, although they believe they have to do with evil spirits. But scientific men who have studied these birds will tell you that they are more wonderful than if all the Indians' fancies about them were true. They are great birds, more than three feet across the wings, somewhat like owls, somewhat like cuckoos, somewhat like goatsuckers: but, on the whole, unlike anything in the world but themselves; and instead of feeding on moths or mice, they feed upon hard dry fruits, which they pick off the trees after the set of sun. And wise men will tell you, that in making such a bird as that, and giving it that peculiar way of life, and settling it in that cavern, and a few more caverns in that part of the world, and therefore in making the caverns ready for them to live in, Madam How must have taken ages and ages, more than you can imagine or count.

But that is among the harder lessons which come in the latter part of Madam How's book. Children need not learn them yet; and they can never learn them, unless they master her alphabet, and her short and easy lessons for beginners, some of which I am trying to teach you now.

But I have just recollected that we are a couple of very stupid fellows. We have been talking all this time about chalk and limestone, and have forgotten to settle what they are, and how they were made. We must think of that next time. It will not do for us (at least if we mean to be scientific men) to use terms without defining them; in plain English, to talk about—we don't know what.

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