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Besides this various action of standing trees, considered as inorganic matter, the forest exercises, by the annual moulting of its foliage, still another influence on the temperature of the earth, and, consequently, of the atmosphere which rests upon it.
Accordingly, during the moulting time, he generally took up his abode at a castle adjoining the gardens, called "The Stone Rampart," to inspect the gathering in of the feathers himself; and he was just on his journey thither with his falconers, hunters, and other retainers, when the robber-band caught sight of him from the wood.
Almost immediately opposite this general emporium, the sign of the Blue Boar swung proudly across the street in front of a low rather dilapidated-looking hostelry, with a wide frontage, and an archway leading into a spacious desolate yard, where one gloomy cock of Spanish descent was crowing hoarsely on the broken roof of a shed, surrounded by four or five shabby-looking hens, all in the most wobegone stage of moulting, and appearing as if eggs were utterly remote from their intentions.
"Quite right, Rap, and it also gives the parents a chance to shed the old feathers that have been worn by rubbing on the nest, grow a new, thick, warm coat for winter, and rest themselves before they set out on their autumn journey. Do you remember what I told you that rainy day in my study about this moulting or changing of feathers?" "Yes, I do," said Rap and Nat together.
The passing of winter in snow regions is like the moulting season of fowls, or the season when the furred world sheds its coat. The dazzling whiteness of the earth is superseded by a dirty drab-grey. The snow lasts long, but its hue is utterly changed. And now Victor was looking out upon a scene that was wholly dispiriting to the mind used to the brilliancy of the northern winter.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, the birds whose job it was to make the woods merry with their songs, decided to go on strike. They said, "We have sung all day, all springtime, and half way through the summer, but now we are moulting, the weather is frightfully hot; we need a rest, and we are going to stop singing, to take a holiday."
So he proclaimed that spirit, and the King said, 'Prophesy to me of barbercraft. And he cried, 'O King of the age, the barber is abased, trodden underfoot, given over to the sneers and the gibes of them that flatter the powerful ones; he is as the winter worm, as the crocodile in the slime of his sleep by the bank, as the sick eagle before moulting.
Since the revival of learning, whereby the Western races of Europe were enabled to enter upon that progress towards true knowledge, which was commenced by the philosophers of Greece, but was almost arrested in subsequent long ages of intellectual stagnation, or, at most, gyration, the human larva has been feeding vigorously, and moulting in proportion.
"I should think they had flown far enough for to-day without circling around for the fun of it." "Don't you remember the days when you were young?" said the Swallow next to him. "When I was young?" he answered. "My dear, I am young now. I shall always be young in the springtime. I shall never be old except when I am moulting."
"Is it like me?" he asked, conceitedly, as they bound some cloths to a piece of stick, in such a way that they bore some slight resemblance to a bird. "Dear me, what a pity! I'm not moulting, or you might have had one or two of my feathers to stick on for a tail," he added. "H'm! I shouldn't have thought you had any to spare for moulting purposes," said the Archæopteryx.
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