"That is a foreign bird," observed the scientific man, examining
it carefully through his spectacles, "and quite a curiosity. I do
not remember having ever seen one like it. The note, too, is peculiar.
In some of its tones it reminds me of the nightingale. No doubt it
is the descendant of a developed species of a nightingale, carefully
selected and artificially bred from one generation to another.
Wonderful modifications of species may be obtained in this manner,
as experiments with fancy breeds of pigeons has amply proved. Permit
me to examine the bill more closely. Yes, yes--a nightingale
certainly--and yet--indeed, I ought not to decide in haste. I
should greatly like to have the opinion of Professor Effaress on
the subject. But what noise is that yonder?"

For just then a terrible hubbub arose among a crowd of people
congregated under the portico of a large and magnificent building
a little way from the place where the scientific man and the
intellectual traveler stood conversing. This building, the facade
of which was adorned all over with bas-reliefs of Liberty and
Progress, and modern elderly gentlemen in doctors' gowns and laurel
wreaths, with rolls of paper and microscopes, was, in fact, a great
Scientific Institution, and into it the procession of learned
personages whom the travelers had met on their way had entered,
followed by a great multitude of admirers and enthusiasts. In this
edifice the solemn rites which the votary of Science had described
were to be held, and a vast congregation filled its halls. All
at once, just as the sacrifices were about to begin, a solitary
man arose in the midst of the hushed assembly, and protested, as
once of old, by the banks of the far-away Ganges, Siddartha Buddha
had protested against the bloody offerings of the priests of Indra.