THE SPARROW KIND. 141 



roughly to resolve. Addison, in some beautiful Latin lines, inserted 

 in the Spectator, is entirely of opinion that birds observe a strict chas- 

 tity of manners, and never admit caresses of a different tribe. 



Chaste are their instincts, faithful is their fire, 

 No foreign beauty tempts to false desire ; 

 The snow-white vesture, and the glittering crown, 

 The simple plumage, or the glossy down 

 Prompt not their love. The patriot bird pursues 

 His well-acquainted tints, and kindred hues ; 

 Hence thro' their tribes no mix'd, polluted flame, 

 No monster-breed to mark the grove with shame * 

 But the chaste black-bird, to its partner true, 

 Thinks black alone is Beauty's fav'rite hue : 

 The nightingale, with mutual passion blest, 

 Sings to its mate, and nightly charms the nest : 

 Vlnle the dark owl, to court his partner flies, 

 And owns his offspring in their yellow eyes. 



But whatever may be the poet's opinion, the probability is against 

 this fidelity among the smaller tenants of the grove. The great birds 

 are much more true to their species than these, and of consequence, 

 the varieties among them are more few. Of the ostrich, the casso- 

 wary, and the eagle, there are but few species, and no arts that map 

 can use, could probably induce them to mix with each other. 



But it is otherwise with the small birds we are describing; it 

 quires very little trouble to make a species between a gold-finch and 

 a canary-bird, between a linnet and a lark. They breed frequently 

 together, and produce a race, not like the mules among the quadru- 

 peds, incapable of breeding again ; for this motley mixture are as 

 fruitful as their parents. What is so easily done by art, very proba- 

 bly often happens in a state of Nature ; and when the male cannot 

 find a mate of his own species, he flies to one of another, that, like 

 him, has been left out in pairing. This, some historians think, may 

 have given rise to the great variety of small birds that are seen among 

 us ; some uncommon mixture might first have formed a new species, 

 and this might have been continued down, by birds of this species 

 choosing to breed together. 



Whether the great variety of our small birds may have arisen from 

 this source, cannot now be ascertained ; but certain it is, that they 

 resemble each other very strongly, not only in their form and plumage, 

 but also in their appetites and manner of living. The gold-finch, the 

 linnet, and the yellow-hammer, though obviously of different species, 

 yet lead a very similar life ; being equally an active, lively; salacious 

 tribe, that subsist by petty thefts upon the labours of mankind, and 

 repay them with a song. Their nests bear a similitude, and they are 

 about the same time in hatching their young, which is usually fifteen 

 days. Were I therefore to describe the manners of these with the 

 same minuteness that I have done the greater birds, I should only 

 present the reader with a repetition of the same_ accounts ; animated 

 neither by novelty nor information. Instead, therefore, of specifying 

 each sort, I will throw them into groups, uniting those together that 

 practise the same manners, or that are remarkable for similai qualiD- 

 cations. 



