OF BIRDS. 405 



food, and the chats, larks, and grey wagtails, seem 

 busily engaged in providing for their wants upon 

 the furze sprays, amidst frozen grass, or upon the 

 banks of ditches and pools ; and as no insect but 

 the winter gnat is now found in such places, it is 

 probable that this creature, which sports in numbers 

 in every sunny gleam, yields them in this season 

 much of their support. Some of the insectiverous 

 birds have at such periods no apparent difficulty in 

 supporting their existence, finding their food in a 

 dormant state in mosses, lichens, and crevices of 

 trees and buildings ; but for those which require 

 animated creatures, I am sensible of none that are 

 to be procured but this gnat, and it possibly has 

 been endowed with its peculiar habits and disposi- 

 tions for a purport like this. We have many 

 examples in nature of similar provisions, wherein 

 one race supports the existence and requirements 

 of another. The molusca and insects of the deep 

 continue the life of some, the feeble races of the air 

 and waters maintain the beings of others, and the 

 beast of the wild seeks his food amidst those which 

 inhabit with him ; but where this chain ends, human 

 faculties will probably never be able to ascertain. 

 The remarkable fact which our microscopes make 

 known to us, that all infusions of natural substances 

 in water will produce life, however extraordinary 

 the form may be, seems to denote a continuation of 

 being beyond any possible comprehension, and 



