The bird / [Jules Michelet].

  • Jules Michelet
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The bird / [Jules Michelet]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    101/360 (page 95)
    Let us pause for a few moments at the solemn passages where life seems still to oscillate uncertain, and Nature appears to question herself, to examine her own volition. “ Shall I be fish or mammal?” says the creature. It falters, and remains a fish, but warm- blooded ; belongs to the mild race of lamantins and seals. “ Shall 1 be bird or quadruped ?” A great question; a perplexed hesitancy— a prolonged and changeful combat. All its various phases are dis- cussed ; the diverse solutions of the problems naively suggested and realized by fantastic beings like the ornithorhynchus, which has nothing of the bird but the beak ; like the poor bat, a tender and innocent animal in its family-circle, but whose undefined form makes it gi-im-looking and unfortunate. You perceive that nature has 7