BIRDS IN GENERAL. 



perfect than all, seem to fill up the chasm that 

 separates animal from vegetable nature. Of man, 

 the most perfect animal, there are but three or 

 four species ; of quadrupeds the kinds are more 

 numerous ; birds are more various still ; fishes 

 yet more ; but insects afford so very great a 

 variety, that they elude the search of the most 

 inquisitive pursuer. 



Quadrupeds, as was said, have some distant re- 

 semblance in their internal structure with man, 

 but that of birds is entirely dissimilar. As they 

 seem chiefly formed to inhabit the empty regions 

 of air, all their parts are adapted to their destined 

 situation. It will be proper, therefore, before I 

 give a general history of birds, to enter into a 

 slight detail of their anatomy and conformation. 



As to their external parts, they seem surpris- 

 ingly adapted for swiftness of motion. The shape 

 of their body is sharp before, to pierce and make 

 way through the air ; it then rises by a gentle 

 swelling to its bulk, and falls off in an expansive 

 tail, that helps to keep it buoyant, while the fore- 

 parts are cleaving the air by their sharpness. 

 From this conformation, they have often been 

 compared to a ship making its way through water; 

 the trunk of the body answers to the hold, the 

 head to the prow, the tail to the rudder, and the 

 wings to the oars ; from whence the poets have 

 adopted the metaphor of remigium alarum, when 

 they describe the wavy motion of a bird in flight. 



What we are called upon next to admire in the 

 external formation of birds is, the neat position 

 of the feathers, lying all one way, answering at 



