VORACITY OF THE WOOD-PIGEON. 267 



may be concentrated in one point. On the other hand, as time has no 

 appearance in the future; so, in the first existence of all creatures there 

 is no space, the development of life in each being, when it is visible, 

 having commenced by the assimilation of matter. But, as it is often de- 

 clared in the Bible, and, as is also apparent from the fact of all the 

 past being wholly in accordance with one system, the future, with the 

 lives of all creatures in every particular, and, consequently, with the rise 

 and progress, and attainments and reverses of every nation, and with all 

 the lesser events therein contained, is all pre-ordained and arranged by the 

 Deity, and is as fully developed in His sight, as is the past time and the 

 past creation. 



The beginning of individual existence, as has just been observed, is a 

 mystery to man, and the creation of species a still greater mystery; but 

 the beginning of creation, and how it was added by the Deity, who ever 

 fills all space, is far more unknown to him. But the unity in the origin 

 of creation is evident from most compounds of matter being compar- 

 atively modern, and from there being so very few simple substances. It 

 is well known that there is but one agent or means in the change and 

 development and organization of matter; and this, in all probability, was 

 the secondary cause in the first production of matter. The names of this 

 agent, as electricity, magnetism, and gravitation, denote its various proper- 

 ties, and its effects also appear in the earthquake and in the volcano. It 

 is so evidently the medium between the operations of the body and the 

 suggestions of the soul, that several speculative persons have confounded 

 it with the mind in man. 



VORACITY OF THE WOOD-PIGEON. 



"There was shot lately, in the neighbourhood of Inverness, a Wood- 

 pigeon, in which was found the enormous quantity of one thousand one 

 hundred grains of wheat, barley, and oats, together with forty grains of 

 peas; the barley grains predominating. This seems to be no unusual 

 case, as there was some time before that, another killed on a neigh- 

 bouring farm, in which were found seventy grains of peas, with a very 

 large quantity of the different kinds of grain already mentioned, but the 

 precaution of counting was not taken: it was stated, however; that the 

 bird was full to the very bill. Such havoc, by a flock of one hundred 

 and ninety or two hundred of these destructive birds, must be very con- 

 siderable in the course of a whole harvest-season, particularly since some 

 ornithologists maintain that such are the digestive powers of the Wood- 

 pigeon, that they are able to consume daily three times their own weight 

 of food; a most extraordinary fact, if true. It is needless to add that the 



