58 A HISTORY OP 



Their internal parts are equally formed for tne food they seek for 

 Their stomach is simple and membranous, and wrapt in fat to increase 

 the powers of digestion ; and their intestines are short and glandular. 

 As their food is succulent and juicy, they want no length of intestinal 

 tube to form it into proper nourishment. Their food is flesh, which 

 does not require a slow digestion to be converted into a similitude of 

 substance to their own. 



Thus formed for war, they lead a life of solitude and rapacity. They 

 inhabit by choice the most lonely places, and the n.ust desert moun- 

 tains. They make their nests in the clefts of rocks, and on the high- 

 est and most inaccessible trees of the forest. Whenever they appear 

 in the cultivated plain or the warbling grove, it is only for the purpo- 

 ses of depredation ; and -are gloomy intruders on the general joy of 

 the landscape. They spread terror wherever they approach : all that 

 variety of music which but a moment before enlivened the grove, at 

 their appearing is instantly at an end : every order of lesser birds seek 

 for safety, either by concealment or flight ; and some are even driven 

 to take protection with man, to avoid their less merciful pursuers. 



It would "ndeed be fatal to all the smaller race of birds, if, as they 

 are weaker than all, they were also pursued by all, but it is contrived 

 wisely for their safety, that every order of carnivorous birds seek 

 only for such as are of the size most approaching their own. The 

 eagle flies at the bustard or the pheasant ; the sparrow-hawk pursues 

 the thrush and the linnet. Nature has provided that each species 

 should make war only on such as are furnished with adequate means 

 of escape. The smallest birds avoid their pursuers by the extreme 

 agility, rather than the swiftness of their flight ; for every order would 

 soon be at an end, if the eagle, to its own swiftness of wing, added the 

 versatility of the sparrow. 



Another circumstance which tends to render the tyranny of these 

 animals' more supportable, is, that they are less fruitful than other 

 birds, breeding but few at a time. Those of the larger kinds seldom 

 produce above four eggs, often but two ; those of the smaller kinds 

 never above six or seven. The pigeon, it is true, which is their prey, 

 never breeds above two at a time-; but then she breeds every month 

 in the year. The carnivorous kinds only breed annually, and, of con- 

 sequence, their fecundity is small in comparison. 



As they are fierce by nature, and are difficult to be tamed, so this 

 fierceness extends even to their young, which they force from the nest 

 sooner than birds of the gentler kind. Other birds seldom forsake their 

 young till able completely to provide for themselves : the rapacious 

 kinds expel them from the nest at a time when they still should protect 

 and support them. This severity to their young proceeds from the neces- 

 sity of providing for themselves. All animals that, by the conforma- 

 tion of their stomach and intestines, are obliged to live upon flesh, and 

 support themselves by prey, though they may be mild when young, 

 boon become fierce and mischievous, by the very habit of using those 

 arms with which they are supplied by nature. As it is only by the 

 destruction of other animals that they can subsist, they become more 

 furious every day ; and even the parental feelings are overpowered in 

 their general habits of cruelty. If the power of obtaining a supply be 



