Animals. 



avoid their enemies, by placing some ot 

 their own company as centinels, to warn 

 them of the first approach of danger ; a 

 duty in which they are seldom negligent, 

 and for the neglect of which they are in- 

 variably punished by the rest. 



II. Birds. Birds, next to quadrupeds 

 seem to demand our attention. The 

 generic characters of this class of animals 

 are these ; the body is covered with fea- 

 thers, and furnished with two legs, two 

 wings, and a hard horny bill ; and the fe- 

 males are oviparous. 



Birds are infinitely more numerous in 

 their different kinds than quadrupeds 9 

 but still less so than Fishes. They seem 

 designed by providence for a solitary life; 

 and though inferior to the brute creation 

 in the powers of attack and defence, they 

 possess a greater faculty of escape; and the 

 greater part of them immediately elude 

 their enemies of the quadruped and rep- 

 tile nature, by an aerial escape ; for which 

 all parts of their bodies seem admirably 

 adapted ; the external form of the body 

 being sharp before ; swelling gradually, 

 and terminating in a 1 *ge spreading tail, 

 which renders it buoyant, while the fore 

 part cleaves the air- 



