DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERS OF ANIMALS. 



189 



numerous species of goldfinch, green-finch, thistle-finch, linnet, and sparrow ; 

 the hirundo, including the swift, swallow, and martin ; the loxia or grosbeak, 

 including the bullfinch and hawfinch, the only finches, I am at present aware 

 of, that do not belong to the fringilla genus : and the motacilla, a most inte- 

 resting group, as including the nightingale, whose song surpasses that of all 

 (he singing birds of the grove ; and the redbreast, whose song is, indeed, 

 less sonorous and striking, but who is so justly celebrated and beloved for his 

 social qualities ; together with all the amusing species and varieties of wrens 

 and wag-tails. To the order of passeres appertain also the pipra or manakin, 

 some of which are peculiarly musical; and the turdus, comprising those 

 sweet melodious choristers, the thrush, the throstle, and the blackbird. 



Such is a brief and scanty survey of the interesting and instructive class 

 of birds : and thus, in the elegant language of the poet of the Seasons, 



Innumerous songsters, in the fresh'ning shade, 

 Of new-sprung leaves their modulations mix 

 Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw. 

 And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone, 

 Aid the full concert : while the stock-dove breathes 

 A melancholy murmur through the whole.* 



Nor should we suffer their other curious endowments to pass by us unno- 

 ticed. The muscles, and delicate plumage of their wings, give them not 

 merely the power of flight, but, under different modifications, a nearly equal 

 command over earth, air, and water : for such a provision enables the rail, 

 destitute as he is.of a webbed foot, to rival, in swimming and diving, the guil- 

 lemot; the ostrich, as we have just observed, to outstrip in running the speed 

 of the race-horse; and even the diminutive swallow, and various other mi- 

 gratory birds, to double, when on the wing, the pace of the fleetest ostrich ; 

 and to dart, twice a year, across the Atlantic and Mediterranean, often at the 

 rate of a mile in a minute for several minutes in succession; and perhaps 



* Catalogue of singing birds, with the time of their beginning and ceasing to sing, from a mean of five 

 years' observation, with the numerical value of their notes, twenty being that of absolute perfection. From 

 an interesting ar.icle by Mr. John Blackwell, in Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Man- 

 chester. Second Series, vol. iv. 



