HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



BOOK I. 



OF BIRDS IN GENERAL. 



CHAP. I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



WE are now come to a beautiful and loqua- 

 cious race of animals, that embellish our for- 

 ests, amuse our walks, and exclude solitude 

 from our most shady retirements. From these 

 man has nothing to fear; their pleasures, their 

 desires, and even their animosities, only serve 

 to enliven the general picture of nature, and 

 give harmony to meditation. 



No part of nature appears destitute of inha- 

 bitants. The woods, the waters, the depths 

 of the earth, have their respective tenants ; 

 while the yielding air, and those tracts of 

 seeming space where man never can ascend, 

 are also passed through by multitudes of the 

 most beautiful beings of the creation. 



Every order and rank of animals seems fit- 

 ted for its situation in life ; but none more ap- 

 parently than birds: they share, in common 

 with the stronger race of quadrupeds, the ve- 

 getable spoils of the earth ; are supplied with 

 swiftness, to compensate for their want of 

 force ; and have a faculty of ascending into 

 the air, to avoid that power which they can- 

 not oppose. 



The birds seem formed entirely for a life 

 of escape ; and every part of the anatomy of 

 the animal seems calculated for swiftness. As 

 it is designed to rise upon air, all its parts are 

 proportionably light, and expand a large sur- 

 face without solidity. 



In a comparative view with man, their for- 

 mation seems much ruder and more imper- 

 fect ; and they are in general found incapable 

 of the docility even of quadrupeds. Indeed, 

 what degree of sagacity can be expected 

 in animals whose eyes are almost as large 

 as their brain? However, though they fall 

 below quadrupeds in the scale of nature, and 



VOL. n. 



are less imitative of human endowments ; 

 yet they hold the next rank, and far surpass 

 fishes and insects, both in the structure of their 

 bodies and in their sagacity. 



As in mechanics the most curious instru- 

 ments are generally the most complicated, so 

 it is in anatomy. The body of man presents 

 the greatest variety upon dissection ; quadru- 

 peds, less perfectly formed, discover their de- 

 fects in the simplicity of their conformation ; 

 the mechanism of birds is still less complex ; 

 fishes are furnished with fewer organs still ; 

 whilst insects, more imperfect than all, seem 

 to fill up the chasm that separates animal from 

 vegetable nature. Of man, the most perfect 

 animal, there are but three or four species; of 

 quadrupeds, the kinds are more numerous; 

 birds are more various still ; fishes yet more ; 

 but insects afford so very great a variety, that 

 they elude the search of the most inquisitive 

 pursuer. 



Quadrupeds, as was said, have some distant 

 resemblance in their internal structure with 

 man ; but that of birds is entirely dissimilar. 

 As they seem chiefly formed to inhabit the 

 empty regions of air, all their parts are 

 adapted to their destined situation. It will 

 be proper, therefore, before I give a general 

 history of birds, to enter into a slight detail of 

 their anatomy and conformation. 



As to their external parts, they seem sur- 

 prisingly adapted for swiftness of motion. 

 The shape of their body is sharp before, to 

 pierce and make way through the air; it then 

 rises by a gentle swelling to its bulk, and falls 

 off in an expansive tail, that helps to keep it 

 buoyant, while the fore-parts are cleaving the 

 air by their sharpness. From this conforma- 

 tion, they have often been compared to a ship 

 making its way through water ; the trunk of 

 the body answers to the hold, the head to the 

 prow, the tail to the rudder, and the wings to the 



