THE THRUSH. 



we have so many instances of attachment existing 

 between creatures similar and dissimilar in their 

 natures, which are obvious to all, and where no 

 interest can possibly arise as a motive ; when we 

 mark the varieties of disposition which they mani- 

 fest under uniform treatment, their various apti- 

 tudes and comprehensions, sensibility or inattention 

 to sounds, &c., it seems but reasonable to consider 

 them as gifted with latent passions ; though being 

 devoid of mind to stimulate or call them into action, 

 by any principle of volition or virtue, how excited 

 to performance we know no more than we do the 

 motives of many of their bodily actions! The 

 kindnesses and attentions which the maternal 

 creature manifests in rearing its young, and the 

 assistance occasionally afforded by the paternal 

 animal, during the same period, appears to be a 

 natural inherent principle universally diffused 

 throughout creation ; but when we see a sick or 

 maimed animal supplied and attended by another, 

 which we suppose gifted with none of the stimuli to 

 exertion that actuate our conduct, we endow them 

 by this denial with motives with which we our- 

 selves are unacquainted ; and at last we can only 

 relate the fact, without defining the cause. 



The throstle is a bird of great utility in a garden 

 where wall-fruit is grown, by reason of the peculiar 

 inclination which it has for feeding upon snails, 

 and very many of them he does dislodge in the 



