called by the natives the Seven Sisters,[1] and seem to have always some little difference on hand to settle. But if they gabble till the coming of the Coquecigrues they will never settle it. Fighting? Not at all; do not be misled by the tone of voice. That heptachord clamor is not the expression of any strong feelings. It is only a way they have. They always exchange their commonplaces as if their next neighbor was out of hearing. If they could but be quiet they might pass for the bankers among the birds, — they look so very respectable. But though they dress so soberly, their behavior is unseemly The Prince in Herodotus’s history disappointed the expectations of his friends by dancing head downwards on a table, “gesticulating with his legs.” If Coleridge’s wise-looking friend had preserved his silence through the whole meal, the poet would have remembered him as one of the most intelligent men of his acquaintance; but the apple dumplings, making him speak, burst the bubble of his reputation. His speech bewrayed him, like the Shibboleth at the ford of Jordan, “the bread and cheese” of the Fleming persecution, or the Galilean twang of the impetuous saint. Pythagoreans may, if they will, aver that these birds are the original masons and hodmen of Babel, but I would rather believe that in a former state they were old Hindu women, garrulous[2] and addicted to raking about amongst rubbish heaps, as all old native women seem to be. The Seven Sisters pretend to feed on insects, but that is only when they cannot get peas. Look at them now, — the whole family, a septemvirate of sin,
