304 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 
gether useless were not two considerations super- 
added—an instinct to desire and select the. proper 
food, and a locality in which that food is to be ob- 
tained. It is curious and edifying to observe with 
what discrimination the young of these animals, 
without experience and without instruction, in- 
stinctively seize on the particular kind of food 
adapted to their digestive organs, rejecting all 
other kinds, however palatable and nutritive to 
creatures of a different species. Nor is it less 
worthy of remark, that there is scarcely a vege- 
table or animal production which some species 
of bird does not seem created to feed upon; and 
that, speaking generally, wherever that peculiar 
production is to be found, there is also to be found 
the particular kind of bird to which it furnishes 
wholesome food. We have already remarked the 
astonishing celerity with which, in tropical coun- 
tries, vultures and other birds of prey congregate 
from all quarters of the heavens around a dead 
carcass to devour it, indicating at once the acute- 
ness of their sight, and the remarkable provision 
which has been thus made for the destruction of 
what might otherwise injuriously infect the atmo- 
sphere; and we may now rank this fact among those 
that establish, or, at least, illustrate, the wise ar- 
rangements to which we have been adverting. 
We are reminded, by what has been just said, of 
the peculiar intensity of some of the senses in cer- 
tain species of birds, which opens another view of 
the wise and beneficent provisions of Providence. 
It is by the remarkable strength of their vision that 
birds of prey are enabled to mark their quarry at a 
height where, to the human eye, they themselves 
are almost invisible, and from whence, with incred- 
ible velocity, they pounce on their unsuspecting 
victims, and it is doubtless the same extraordinary 
faculty which, if it does not enable, at least power- 
fully assists, the migratory tribes to shape their 
