420 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



irig the tour of the fortified places of Ruffian Fin- 

 land, with the General Officers of the Corps of 

 Engineers, in which I ferved, we travelled fome- 

 times at the rate of twenty leagues a day, without 

 feeing on the road either village or bird. But when 

 we perceived the fparrows fluttering about, we 

 concluded that we mufl be drawing near fome in- 

 habited place. In this indication we were never 

 once deceived. I relate it with the more fatisfac» 

 tion, that it may fometimes be of fervice to perfons 

 who have loft their way in the woods. 



Garcillafo de la Vega informs us, that his father 

 having been detached from Peru, with a company 

 of Spaniards, to make difcoveries beyond the Cor- 

 deliers, was in danger of perifhing with hunger in 

 the midft of their uninhabited valleys and quag- 

 mires. He never could have got. out, had he not 

 perceived in the air a flight of paroquets, which 

 iuggefted a hope that there might be fome place 

 of habitation at no great diftance. He directed 

 his march to that point of the compafs which the 

 paroquets had purfued, and arrived, after incredi- 

 ble fatigue, at a colony of Indians, v.ho cultivated 

 fields of maize. 



It is to be obferved, that Nature has not given 

 a mufical voice to any one fea or river bird, be- 

 caufe it would have been loft in the noife of the 



waters, 



