274 WINTER SUBSISTENCE OF BIRDS. 



food, and the chats, larks, and gray 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 insectivorous 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 endow- 

 ed with its peculiar habits and dispositions for a purport 

 like this. We have many examples in nature of simi- 

 lar 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 probably subservient 

 to the existence of each other: the minute creature 

 that floats a hardly perceptible atom in the water of 

 the ditch, and which subsists many of the animals 

 which inhabit those places, feeds upon smaller than it- 

 self, and those again, possibly, upon more minute ones 

 which the vegetable infusions of those places give ex- 

 istence to : here the investigation terminates, but the 

 thread unbroken continues, probably through endless 

 gradations, perceptible to infinity alone. 



Having applauded the operations of Nature with so 

 much cordiality, possibly I may be called her "enthusi- 

 astic adorer," but the epithet must be disclaimed. 

 None can respect the works of creation more, but 'tis 

 not with an ecstasy that glows, fades, and expires, but 



