reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Experiment_on_a_Bird_in_the_Air_Pump
We all know how important the vacuum pumps are, but the most sensational part of the story is its invention. The inventor "Robert Boyle" in his experiment while testing his designed one of the three pumps wrote this"the Bird for a while appear'd lively enough; but upon a greater Exsuction of the Air, she began manifestly to droop and appear sick, and very soon after was taken with as violent and irregular Convulsions, as are wont to be observ'd in Poultry, when their heads are wrung off: For the Bird threw her self over and over two or three times, and dyed with her Breast upward, her Head downwards, and her Neck awry"
This just shows his great interest in science but the worst part of the story was not Boyle, his successors used birds for demonstrations which is more of fun and less of educations and that's how I think that portrait might have come of.
Or may simply be the painter just wanted to paint something so out of curiosity he painted it out,Or may be due to ignominy in painters heart towards him and towards his counterpart humans (which I certainly doubt) he have invented (sorry painted) it out.
Then due to intentions not to be disclosed out/ discovered out/ or may be I am not sure of, that I remember a great song by led zepplin, which says in some of his lines
There's a song bird who sing............And she is buying a stairway to heaven.
The birds who sacrificed themselves/ or may be we sacrificed them for our own personal interests/ amusements/ curiosity /or just for sake of demonstration (Birds) sold out souls of theirs in the naked world and left us to buy stairway to heaven and is enjoying in a low-pressured-chamber-heaven.
May be, I don't know / appreciate but I am also buying a stairway to heaven because even I believe that all what glitters is gold like the bird who believed that she could sing in vacuum.
