THE SPARROW KIND. 



The snow-white vesture and the glittering crown, 

 The simple plumage, or the glossy down, 

 Prompt not their love. The patriot bird pursues 

 His well acquainted tints, and kindred hues : 

 Hence through their tribes no mix'd polluted flame, 

 No monster-breed to mark the grove with shame ; 

 But the chaste blackbird, to its partner true, 

 Thinks black alone is beauty's favourite hue ; 

 The nightingale, with mutual passion blest, 

 Sings to its mate, and nightly charms the nest ; 

 While the dark owl to court his partner flies, 

 And owns his offspring in their yellow eyes. 



But whatever may be the poet's opinion, the 

 probability is against this fidelity among the 

 smaller tenants of the grove. The great birds 

 are much more true to their species than these ; 

 and, of consequence, the varieties among them 

 are more few. Of the ostrich, the cassowary, and 

 the eagle, there are but few species ; and no arts 

 that man can use could probably induce them to 

 mix with each other. 



But it is otherwise with the small birds we are 

 describing ; it requires very little trouble to make 

 a species between a goldfinch and a canary-bird, 

 between a linnet and a lark. They breed fre- 

 quently together ; and produce a race, not, like 

 the mules among quadrupeds, incapable of breed- 

 ing again, for this motley mixture are as fruitful 

 as their parents. What is so easily done by art, 

 very probably often happens in a state of nature ; 

 and when the male cannot find a mate of his own 

 species, he flies to one of another, that, like him, 

 has been left out in pairing. This, some histo- 

 rians think, may have given rise to the great va- 



