THE FARMER AT HOME. 



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tations. But why should they at all change their habitation ? and 

 why is not some certain place to be found, in all the terraqueous globe, 

 affording them convenient food and habitation all the year round ? 

 The second, that they should know what way to steer their course, 

 and whither to go. What instinct is it that moves a poor foolish bird 

 to venture over vast tracts of land and sea. If it be said, that by their 

 high ascents up into the air, they can see across the seas ; yet what 

 should teach or persuade them that another land is more proper for 

 the purpose than this ? that Britain, for instance, should afford them 

 better accommodation than Egypt ? than the Canaries ? than Spain ? 

 or any other of the intermediate countries ? 



The manner of the birds of passage journeying to their southern 

 abode may vary, according to the different structure of their bodies, 

 and their power of supporting themselves in the air. Those birds 

 with short wings, though they are incapable of such long flights as 

 the swallow, or of flying with so much celerity, yet may pass to less 

 distant places, and by slower movements. Swallows and cuckoos may 

 perform their passage in a very short time ; but there is for them no 

 necessity for speed, since every day's passage affords them an increase 

 of warmth, and a continuance of food. Providence, which has guided 

 the defenceless animals in many other instances to the safest methods 

 of performing their necessary works, may have instructed many of 

 these birds which have shorter passages to make, or places to stop at 

 by the way, to fly only in the night, that they may be secure from 

 the birds of prey ; and Mr. Catesby gives a proof that some species 

 do so, from his own observation ; for, lying on the deck of a sloop on 

 the north side of Cuba, himself and the whole company heard succes- 

 sively, for three nights, flights of rice birds, which are easily distin- 

 guished from all other birds by their notes, and which were passing 

 over their heads northerly ; which is their direct way from Cuba, and 

 the southern continent of America, from whence they get to Carolina, 

 annually, about the time that rice begins to ripen, and from whence 

 they return southward again, when it is gathered, and they are 

 become fat. 



MILK. The fluid secreted in the breasts of females for the nour- 

 ishment of their young. That of the cow being furnished in greatest 

 abundance, is of much importance as an article of diet. By boiling 

 milk, its albuminous part is not coagulated into a mass like the white 

 of an egg. on account of the larger quantity of water through which it 

 is diffused ; but a thin film rises to the surface, which, if removed, is 

 replaced by another, and if this be continued, the whole of the albu- 

 men will be removed. This renders the milk less nutritive, but more 

 easily digestible ; and hence many delicate stomachs can take boiled 

 milk, who could not take it in its natural state. As milk is sufficiently 

 nourishing, and holds a just medium between the spare nutriment of 

 vegetables and the stimulant nature of animal food, it is directed with 

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