goo 



ed to that of the grinding teeth in man and other 

 animals. 



Thus the organs of digestion are in a manner revers- 

 ed in birds. Beasts grind their food with their teeth, 

 and then it passes into the stomach, where it is soft- 

 ened and digested. On the contrary, birds of this 

 sort first soften it in the crop, and then it is ground 

 and comminuted in the stomach or gizzard. Birds are 

 all careful to pick sand, grave! 5 and other hard sub- 

 stances, not to grind their food, as has been supposed, 

 but to prevent the too violent actiun of the coats of the 

 stomach against each other. 



To birds, the return of spring is the beginning of 

 pleasure. Those vital spirits which seemed locked up 

 during winter, then begin to expand ; vegetables and 

 insects supply abundance of food ; and the bird having 

 more than a sufficiency for its own subsistence, is im- 

 pelled to transfuse life as well as to maintain it. Those 

 warblings which had been hushed during the colder sea- 

 sons, now begin to animate the fields; every grove 

 and bush resounds with the challenge of anger, or the 

 call of allurement. The delightfril concert of the grove, 

 which is so much admired by man, is no way studied 

 for his amusement : it is the call of the male to the fe- 

 male; his efforts to sooth her during the time of 

 incubation, or a challenge between two males for the 

 affections of some common favourite. 



It is by this call that birds begin to pair at the ap- 

 proach of spring, and provide for the support of a fu- 

 ture progeny. The loudest notes are usually from the 

 male ; the hen expresses her consent in a short inter, 

 rupted twittering. Their compact holds with unbroken 

 faith : most birds live with inviolable fidelity together, 

 and when one dies the other is always seen to share 

 the same fate soon after. We must look for it in our 

 fields and in our forests, where nature continues in 

 unadulterated simplicity ; where the number of males 

 is generally equal to that of females : but the male of 

 all wild birds is as happy in the young brood as the 



