230 FOREIGN BIRDS. 



mutable truth of that Being which ordained, and 

 of that volume which has proclaimed his mandate 

 to us. But man has the power assigned him of 

 calling to his aid a visible object of dread, confided 

 to him from the earliest periods ; and he alone, of 

 all created beings, has the agency of this terror. All 

 the inferior orders have a fear of it, and flee from 

 it, even when its effects could never have been 

 known or experienced, but which appears to be 

 innate and inseparable from all. Man alone has 

 the knowledge, the means, of calling heat into 

 action ; and though warmth is the delight, and 

 essential to the being of most, yet, rouse it into 

 active operation, producing fire, and terror and 

 flight succeed enjoyment and rest : it deters the 

 approach of the most ferocious, and man and his 

 charge abide unharmed when surrounded by the 

 terror he has raised. In addition to the many 

 characters given as a definition of man, we might 

 call him a fire-producing creature. 



The end of our summer months, and the autum- 

 nal season, afford us frequently the best periods for 

 observing some of our occasional visiting birds. 

 Upon their first arrival, and for a time afterwards, 

 their notes announce their presence ; but they are 

 not always to be seen with satisfaction, and scat- 

 tered in retired places, or occupied in the business 

 of incubation, when they are particularly wary and 

 suspicious, they are but casually noticed : but in 

 the times above stated, our gardens, shrubberies, 

 and orchards, become their resort, seeking for the 



