BOOK OF NATURE LAID OPEN. 63 



kind ; and it must appear to be not a little surpris- 

 ing to those who reflect upon it, that an hypothesis 

 which is, under every point of view, so absurd, 

 should ever have obtained currency for one moment 

 among men who had their eyes open, and were not 

 deprived of the power of reasoning. 



CHAP. VII. 



BIRDS. 



{ < But who the various nations can declare, 



That plough with busy wing the peopled air ? 



These cleave the crumbling bark for insect food ; 



Those dip the crooked beak in kindred blood ; 



Some haunt the rushy moor, the lonely woods ; 



Some bathe their silver plumage in the floods." 



THE Ostrich, the Emu, and the Cassowary, are 

 not only remarkable, by reason of their superiority of 

 size, but seem to claim our first attention among the 

 feathery tribes, on account of their constituting some 

 of those apparent links, by which the winged tribe 

 is united to the order of Quadrupeds, For although 

 these animals resemble birds in the outline, and in 

 several parts of their conformation, they certainly 

 cannot be classed among the more perfect orders of 

 the species, in as much as they do not make use of 

 their wings for the purpose of flying ; and as to in- 

 ternal formation, the Ostrich is said to have as great 

 a resemblance to the tour-footed as to the volatile 

 order. 



