182 THE COMMON ROOK. 



lingering thus for a few autumnal mornings, and 

 counselling with each other around their abandoned 

 and now useless nests, which before the return of 

 spring are generally beaten from the trees, is by no 

 means manifest to us. 



The sense of smelling seems often to supply in 

 animals the want of faculties they are not gifted 

 with ; and it is this power which directs them to 

 their food with greater certainty, than the discern- 

 ment of man could do. That we have every faculty 

 given us necessary for the condition in which we are 

 placed is manifest ; yet the mechanical talents and 

 intuition of the insect, the powers that birds and 

 beasts possess, and the superior acuteness of some 

 of their senses, of which, perhaps, we have little con- 

 ception, makes it evident that all created things 

 were equally the objects of their Maker's benevo- 

 lence and care ; the worm that creepeth, and the 

 beast that perisheth, deserve our consideration, and 

 claims from human reason mercy and compassion. 



A short time since circumstances induced me to 

 save the entire offspring of my small rookery, and 

 we calculated that about two hundred young birds 

 escaped and joined the flights ; but in the ensuing 

 spring the numbers of nests in our trees were not 

 sensibly increased, the old birds alone apparently 

 building in them. The winter certainly may have 

 consumed some, but probably not equal to the in- 

 crease. All this seems in perfect unison with the 

 tendency of nature in most of her departments, to 

 spread and disperse rather than to accumulate, to 



