VOICES OF BIRDS. 267 



bird, that it remains crouching and motionless as 

 a stone on the ground ; a hand-net is brought over 

 it, and it is caught. 



From various little scraps of intelligence scat- 

 tered through the sacred and ancient writings, it 

 appears certain, as it was reasonable to conclude, 

 that the notes now used by birds, and the voices of 

 animals, are the same as uttered by their earliest 

 progenitors. The language of man, without any 

 reference to the confusion accomplished at Babel, 

 has been broken into innumerable dialects, created 

 or compounded as his wants occurred, or his ideas 

 prompted ; or obtained by intercourse with others, 

 as mental enlargement or novelty necessitated new 

 words to express new sentiments. Could we find 

 a people from Japan or the Pole, whose progress 

 in mind has been stationary, without increase of 

 idea, from national prejudice or impossibility of 

 communication with others, we probably should 

 find little or no alteration in the original language 

 of that people ; so, by analogy of reasoning, the 

 animal having no idea to prompt, no new want to 

 express, no converse with others, (for a note caught 

 and uttered merely is like a boy mocking the 

 cuckoo,) so no new language is acquired. With 

 civilized man, every thing is progressive ; with 

 animals, where there is no mind, all is stationary. 

 Even the voice of one species of birds, except in 

 particular cases, seems not to be attended to by 

 another species. That peculiar call of the female 

 cuckoo, which assembles so many contending 



