Formation of Birds. 



IN considering the external form of a bird, the first 

 thing that strikes a philosophical inquirer is the 

 wisdom with which Providence has adapted it to the 

 element in which it is destined to move. 



In its smooth pointed bill, and gradually enlarging head 

 and neck, he perceives an instrument admirably calculated 

 to penetrate the yielding air. The rounded prow-like 

 shape of its breast, too, is adapted with mathematical 

 exactness to the same useful purpose; while its flexible 

 tail is made with surprising skill to perform the part of a 

 rudder; and its wings equally poised and furnished with 

 quills and feathers modelled by numerous wonderful con- 

 trivances, at once for lightness, for strength, and for 

 tenacity, and altogether exhibiting a machine of the most 

 perfect kind for aerial navigation. 



The very varieties in the nature of this machinery, 

 adapted as they are to the faculties and instincts of each 

 species, impress the mind with a deep sense of the minute 

 and skilful care of a beneficent Creator, and give a peculiar 

 interest to the investigation. 



When we proceed from the external form to the con- 

 sideration of the internal structure of birds, as adapted to 

 their peculiar function of moving through the air, we 

 perceive a system of contrivances evidently intended to 

 promote the same end. In the mechanical art exhibited in 

 the formation of the bones and muscles, by which power 

 and motion is given to the wings in the conformation of 

 all the bones, uniting strength with lightness in the air 

 so singularly distributed through the bones and in other 

 parts of the body in the modification of the intestines 



no 



