354 INDEX, 



sities and turnings more numerous as they proceed ; a cer- 

 tain sign with the savages of North America they are near 

 the sea, when they find the rivers winding and often chang- 

 ing their direction : rivers rise in the middle, and the con- 

 vexity is in proportion to the rapidity of the stream : when 

 tides flow up with violence against the natural current, the 

 greatest rapidity is then found at the sides of the river, and 

 why : at these times the middle waters sink in a furrow : a 

 little river received into a large, without augmenting either 

 width or depth, and why: instance of it: a river tending 

 to enter another either perpendicularly or in an opposite 

 direction, will be diverted by degrees from that direction, 

 and obliged to make itself a more favourable entrance with 

 the stream of the former : the union of two rivers into one 

 makes a swifter flow, and why : whatever direction the ridge 

 of the mountains has, the river takes the opposite course, i. 

 173. Their branches compared to a number of roots con- 

 veying nourishment to stately trees : equally difficult to tell 

 which the original : every great river, whose source lies 

 within the tropics, has its stated inundations : those of coun- 

 tries least inhabited are very rocky, and broken into cata- 

 racts, and why, 188. Some lose themselves in the sands or 

 are swallowed up by chasms in the earth : at the poles ne- 

 cessarily small, and why : the rivers of Europe more navi- 

 gable and more manageable than those of Africa and the 

 torrid zone, 194-. All rivers in the world flowing into the 

 sea with a continuance of their present stores, would take 

 up, at a rude computation, eight hundred years to fill it to 

 its present height, 197. 



Robin red-breast, a slender-billed bird of the sparrow kind, 

 living upon insects, iv. 255. 



Rock, great bird, described by Arabian writers, and exagge- 

 rated by fable, supposed to be but a species of the condor, 

 between the eagle and the vulture, iv. 87. 



Roebuck, the smallest of the deer kind in our climate : its 

 description : differs from the fallow-deer, from the stag, and 

 from all the goat kind ; faces the stag, and often comes off 

 victorious: those bucks live in separate families: the sire, 

 dam and young, associate, and admit no stranger into their 

 community : never leaves its mate : rutting season conti- 

 nues but fifteen days, from the end of October to the mid- 

 dle of November : female goes with young five months and 

 a half: produces two at a time, and three rarely : her ten- 

 derness in protecting them very extraordinary : names 

 given by hunters to the different kinds and ages of it: 

 time of shedding its horns : its life seldom longer than 

 twelve or fifteen years ; and tame, not above six or seven ; 

 is of a delicate constitution ; easily subdued, but never 

 thoroughly tamed ; its cry neither so loud nor so frequent 

 aS'the stag's ; hunters easily imitate the call of the young to 



