ASCRIBED TO THE RATTLE-SNAKE, Bcc. lor 



pents ? and, fecondly, at what feafon of the year has any 

 particular fpecies been moft commonly feen under this 

 wonderful i ifluencc ? 1 was induced to believe that the 

 folution of thele two queftions would ferve as a clue to 

 the inveftigation of what has long been confidered as one 

 of the moll mylterious operations in nature. I am per- 

 fuaded that 1 have not been millakea. Poflibly, the cre- 

 dulous may not think as I do. 



it is a curious circumftance in the hiftory of birds, 

 that almoft every fpecies, in the fame country at leaft, 

 has an almoft uniform and determinate method of build- 

 ing its neft, whether we confider the form of the neft, 

 the materials of which it is confti-u£ted, or the place in 

 which it is fixed *, Some obfervations on this fubjed: 

 are neceflarily connedled with the point under inveftiga- 

 tion, in this memoir : — indeed, they are involved in the 

 queftion concerning the fpecies of birds which have moft 

 generally been obferved to be enchanted by the rattle- 

 In ake, &c. 



Some birds build their neft^ on the fummits of the 

 loftieft trees ; others fufpend them, in a pendulous man- 

 ner, at the extremity of a branch, or even on a leaf -f-, 

 whilft others build diem on the lower branches, among 

 bulhes, and in the hollows of decayed, and other trees. 



* I do not mean, by this obfervation, to affert, that birds are necefTarily 

 impelled to conrtruft their nefts of the fame materials, or to place them in 

 the lame fituations : yet fuch is the languige of feme writers on natural 

 hiftory, and on morals, who talk of tlie " detsrminate inftinit" of animals, 

 and who think it impoflible that " animals of the fame fpecies (hould any 

 where differ." " The groufe in America, we are told, perch upon trees ; 

 the hare burrows in the ground ; and we have, in thefe inftances, fufficient 

 reaf 'n to deny that the fpecies of either is the fame with thofe of a like de- 

 nomination, with which we are acquainted, in Europe." Thefe are the 

 words of a late celebrated author. See Dr. A. Fergufon's Principles of 

 Moral and Political Science, vol. i. p. 59 & 60. quarto edition. 



f See a very interefting account of the Motacilla futoria, or Taylor-bird, 

 by my learned friend Mr. Pennant, in his Indian Zoology, pages 44, 4J 

 & 46. 



O Many 



