434 Office of the Gland 



cept it be, " I doubt ! " The tunnel from ear to ear, how- 

 ever, to which Mr. White refers (IX. 289.), is, I should 

 apprehend, to be looked upon rather as a Yankeeism, than as 

 a subject for grave consideration. — C. Conway. Pontnewydd, 

 Monmouthshire, June 6. 1836. 



[ The Question of the Office of the Gland upon the Rump of 

 Birds, (p. 324, 325.)] — Though Mr. Waterton has found it 

 convenient to leave my arguments almost wholly and literally 

 untouched, and has contented himself, as well he might, with 

 laying hold of a stray expression, and even mistating that, I 

 will, by keeping to the subject, set him an example, which I 

 hope in future he will follow; and I accordingly proceed to 

 overturn whatever little he has advanced, xtew .iM iuodliw 



Mr. Waterton professes to quote my words, and makes 

 [p. 267.] me say, that "It is rational to conclude," &c. Now, 

 Sir, will you have the goodness to turn to the page referred to 

 [p. 1 62.] ?, and you will find my words to be, " It is equally ra- 

 tional to conclude," &c; so that the elegant term, "sympathetic 

 stuff" [p. 267.], must apply to Mr. Waterton 's own words, 

 which he has so generously given as mine. Equally with 

 what? why with Mr. Waterton's own fine theory [V. 413.] 

 about the supposed sufferings of birds from the hardness of 

 their bills, when expressing oil from the gland ; and that is, 

 just not at all ; for the whole tendency of my argument [p. 161, 

 162.] goes to prove, that birds do not suffer in the way that 

 Mr. Waterton supposes them to do, any more than it would 

 be equally rational (i. e. that it would be irrational) to sup- 

 pose that the feline race should. Yet Mr. Waterton has not 

 scrupled to make this palpable and egregiously false statement 

 for the sake of a momentary (I correct the expression, for 

 the sake of a poor, paltry, monthly) triumph. I hope next 

 month he will descend from his triumphal car, to apologise 

 for this mischievous violation of truth. Whether the omission 

 of the word "equally" which I have quoted above, does not 

 make, as Aristotle says, " not a little, but the whole difference," 

 I leave your readers to judge. Mr. Waterton has given us 

 a most interesting description of his conflicts with certain 

 obscene insects, which shall be nameless, "quoad me" When, 

 as he tells us, he " saepe caput scaberet" (the usual resource, 

 by the way, as his friend Horace tells us, of authors when in 

 a difficulty), has it never occurred to him, that his nail is at 

 least as hard as the bill of a bird, and, according to his own 

 theory, would cause him all the pain that he attributes to the 

 bird to suffer ? so that, reasoning from analogy, " it is rational 

 to conclude," that the bill of the bird does ?iot cause pain to 

 the gland when expressing its contents; for, as I have before 

 said, we must remember that it is a voluntary action of the 



