six threads, of which I believe two
were of gold. The French oriflamme was of crimson samite, and I don't
see why the French shouldn't call this bird Poule de Soie, instead of
by their present ugly name--more objectionable on all grounds, of
sense, scholarship, and feeling, than the English one. But see the next
species.

153. XII.A.

PULLA AQUATICA. WATER HEN.

There seems so much confusion in the minds, or at least the language,
of ornithologists, between the Water Rail and Water Hen, that I give
this latter bird under the number XII.A. rather than XIII., (which
would, besides, be an unlucky number to end my Appendix with); and it
would be very nice, if at all possible or proper, to keep these two
larger dabchicks connected pleasantly in school-girl minds by their
costumes, and call one 'Silken Runner,' and this,--which, as said
above, Gesner seems to mean, Velvet Runner, or Velvet Hen.--Poule de
Soie or Poule de Velours? I am getting a little confused myself,
however, I find at last, between Poules, Poussins, Pullets, and Pullas;
and must for the present leave the matter to the reader's choice and
fancy, till I get some more birds looked at, and named:--only, for a
pretty end of my Appendix, here are two bits of very precious letters,
sent me by friends who know birds better than most scientific people,
but have been too busy--one in a 'Dorcas Society,' and the other in a
children's hospital--to write books, and only now write these bits of
letters on my special petition. The member of the Dorcas Society sends
me this brief but final and satisfactory answer to my above question
about birds' ears:--

"We talk and think of birds as essentially musical and mimetic, or at
least vocal and noisy creatures; and yet we seem to think that although
they have an ear, they have no ears. Little or nothing is told us of
the structure of a bird's ear. We are now too enlightened to believe in
what we can't see; and ears that are never pricked, or cocked, or laid
back,--that merely receive and learn, but don't express,--that are
organs, not features, don't interest our philosophers now.

"If you blow gently on the feathers of the side of a bird's head, a
little above and behind the corner of the beak, a little below and
behind the eye, the parted feathers will show the listening place; a
little hole with convolutions of delicate skin turning inwards, very
much like what your own ear would be if you had none,--I mean, if al