22 INTRODUCTION. 



Dujon ; one of these suffered itself to be shot at, and, falhng down, 

 as if dead, was put into a little wheelbarrow, and conveyed away 

 by one of its comrades. 



The docility of the Canary and Goldfinch is thus, by dint of se- 

 vere education, put in fair competition with that of the Dog ; and 

 we cannot deny to the feathered creation a share of that kind of 

 rational intelligence, exhibited by some of our sagacious quadrupeds, 

 an incipient knowledge of cause and effect far removed from the 

 unimprovable and unchangeable destinies of instinct. Nature, proba- 

 bly, delights less in producing such animated machines than we are 

 apt to suppose ; and amidst the mutability of circumstances by which 

 almost every animated being is surrounded, there seems to be a 

 frequent demand for that relieving invention, denied to those animals 

 which are solely governed by inflexible instinct. 



The velocity with which birds are able to travel in their aerial 

 element, has no parallel among terrestrial animals ; and this power- 

 ful capacity for progressive motion, is bestowed in aid of their pe- 

 culiar wants and instinctive habits. The swiflest horse may perhaps 

 proceed a mile in something less than two minutes, but such exertion 

 is unnatural, and quickly fatal. An Eagle, whose stretch of wing ex- 

 ceeds seven feet, with ease and majesty, and without any extraordinary 

 effort, rises out of sight in less than three minutes, and therefore 

 must fly more than 3,500 yards in a minute, or at the rate of sixty 

 miles in an hour. At this speed a bird would easily perform a 

 journey of 600 miles in a day, since ten hours only would be required, 

 which would allow frequent halts, and the whole of the night for 

 repose. Swallows, and other migratory birds, might therefore pass 

 from Northern Europe to the equator in seven or eight days. In 

 fact, Adanson saw, on the coast of Senegal, swallows that had 

 arrived there on the 9th of October, or eight or nine days after their 

 departure from the colder continent. A Canary Falcon, sent to the 

 Duke of Lerma, returned in sixteen hours from Andalusia to the 

 island of Teneriffe, a distance of 750 miles. The Gulls of Bar- 

 badoes, according to Sir Hans Sloane, make excursions in flocks 

 to the distance of more than 200 miles after their food, and then 

 return the same day to their rocky roosts. 



If we allow that any natural powers come in aid of the instinct 

 to migration, so powerful and uniform in birds, besides their vast 

 capacity for motion, it must be in the perfection and delicacy of their 

 vision, of which we have such striking examples in the rapacious 

 tribes. It is possible, that at times, they may be directed principally 



