Birds of prey are remarkable for their steady and graceful flight; the motion of their wings is slow, while, like the Pigeon, they are capable of propelling themselves through the air with great rapidity.  The circumgyrations of a Hawk, when reconnoitring far aloft in the air, are singularly graceful.  The flight of the Crow and the Raven is slow and apparently difficult, and they are easily overtaken and annoyed by the King-Bird and other small birds.  They are not formed, like the Falcon, to catch their prey upon the wing, and, though their wings are large and powerful, they are incapable of performing those graceful and difficult evolutions which we observe in the flight of birds of prey.  The flight of Herons resembles that of the Raven.

Small birds, with the exception of a few species, move in an undulating course, alternately rising and sinking.  Birds that move in this manner are, I believe, incapable of making a long journey on the wing without rest, and commonly perform their migrations by short daily stages.

The flight of the little Sand-Pipers, which frequent the salt marshes in numerous flocks, is particularly worthy of study.  It is not unlike the flight of Quails, but more evenly sustained, on account of the greater length and power of their wings.  These birds are capable of holding an even flight in a perfectly horizontal line, only a few inches above the surface of the ground.  When they alight, they seldom make a curve or gyration, but descend in a straight and oblique course.  Snow-Buntings usually turn about, just before they reach the ground; and I have seen them perform the most intricate changes, like the movements of a cotillon-party, executed with the rapidity of arrows, when suddenly checked in their flight by the discovery of a good tract of forage.

With these observations, which might be indefinitely extended, I take leave of the subject, simply remarking, that to the motions of birds, no less than to their beauty of plumage and the sounds of their voices, are we indebted for a great part of the picturesque attractions of landscape; and the more we study them, the more are we convinced, that, in whatever direction we turn our observations, we may extend them to infinity.  There is no limit to any study of Nature, and even one so apparently insignificant as the flight of birds leads to an endless series of interesting facts, and opens the eyes to new beauties in the aspect of Nature and new sources of rational delight.

“THE NEW LIFE” OF DANTE.

[Concluded.]

III.

The year 1289 was one marked in the annals of Florence and of Italy by events which are still famous, scored by the genius of Dante upon the memory of the world.  It was in this year that Count Ugolino and his sons and grandsons were starved by the Pisans in their tower prison.  A few months later, Francesca da Rimini was murdered by her husband.  Between the dates of these two terrible events the Florentines had won the great victory of Campaldino; and thus, in this short space, the materials had been given to the poet for the two best-known and most powerful stories and for one of the most striking episodes of the “Divina Commedia.”