PART III. 



OF BIRDS. 



BOOK III. 



OF BIRDS IN GENERAL. 



CHAPTER 



INTRODUCTION. 



WE are now come to a beautiful and loquacious race of animals, that 

 embellish our forests, 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 en- 

 liven the general picture of nature, and give harmony to meditation. 



No part of nature appears destitute of inhabitants. The woods, the 

 waters, the depths of the earth, have their respective tenants ; whilo 

 tiie yielding air, and those tracts of seeming space where mSn never 

 can ascend, are also passed thiotigh by multitudes of the most beauti- 

 ful beings of the creation. 



Every order and rank of animals seems fitted for its situation in 

 life ; but none more apparently than birds ; they share, in common 

 with the stronger race of quadrupeds, the vegetable 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 

 cannot 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 surface without solidity. 



In a comparative view with man, their formations seem much ruder 

 and more imperfect ; and they are in general found incapable of the 

 docility even of quadrupeds. Indeed, what great degree of sagacity 



