LETTER XLIL 



f! Gavest thou tlie goodly wings with the peacock, 

 Or wili^js and feathers with the at rich?" 



BOOK OF JOB. 

 BEAR SIR, 



JLN fulfilling my promise of giving you a sketch of 

 some of the most remarkable of the winged inhabit- 

 ants of the air, which, by the vivacity of their mo- 

 tions, the beauty of their plumage, or the melody of 

 their notes, enliven the general picture of nature; I 

 shall, for the sake of methodical arrangement, endea- 

 vour to follow the divisions which most naturalists 

 have adopted, and class them under the following 

 heads, viz. the rapacious kind, the poultry kind, the 

 pie kind, the sparrow kind, the crane kind, and the 

 aquatic kind; but not, perhaps, without indulging ill 

 some partial deviations. 



I shall, in the first place, my dear Sir, make another 

 division, which some ornithologists have adopted, and 

 others neglected, and consider in a distinct view a 

 few of the feathered tribes which^do not seem proper- 

 Iv to come under any of the above-mentioned deno- 

 minations. 



Among volatiles, each genius is not only distin- 

 guished by its appropriate characteristics of size, co^ 

 jour, and conformation, but also by the difference f 

 their notes, and the various modes of flight, which, to 

 the practical ornithologist, ail'ord, at a distance, the 

 surest means of discrimination. From the bold and 

 lofty soaring of the eagle, to the short and sudden 

 Sittings, of the wren, there is an ample Reid for the 

 curious investigator of nature, in which thu Jtnind niay 

 expatiate with deiight, in contemplating thv various 

 movements of the winged"- nations*, soaring or. flutter- 

 ing around on every side. A certain class, however, 

 does not possess the faculty of Hying; and as we have 

 already observed, in- speaking of the baty these seem 



