TASTE OF CARNIVOROUS BIRDS. 137 



aerial regions to plunder or murder the lamb, founding 

 his prescriptive right on his strength, his weapons, 

 and his habitual rapine ; the other, standing in the 

 mire, patiently expects the glimpse of its fugitive 

 prey. The woodpecker never forsakes the trees 

 round which he is appointed to creep. The snipe 

 must for ever remain in the marshes, the lark in its 

 furrows, and the warbler in its groves. All the 

 granivorous birds seek the inhabited countries, and 

 attend on the progress of cultivation : while those 

 which prefer wild fruits and berries perpetually fly 

 before us, and cherish the wilds, and forests, and 

 mountains ; there, remote from the dwellings of man, 

 they obey the injunctions of Nature. She retains the 

 hazel-grous under the thick shade of pines ; the 

 solitary blackbird under his rock ; the oriole in the 

 forests, which resound with its notes ; while the 

 bustard seeks its subsistence on the dry commons, 

 and the rail in wet meadows. Such are the eternal, 

 immutable decrees of Nature, as permanent as their 

 forms ; these great possessions she never resigns, and 

 on these we vainly hope to encroach. And are we not 

 continually reminded of the weakness of our empire? 

 She obliges us even to receive troublesome and 

 noxious species ; the rats make a lodgement in our 

 houses, the martins in our windows, the sparrows in 

 our roofs ; and when she conducts the stork to the 

 top of our old ruinous towers, already the habitation 

 of the mournful family of nocturnal birds, does she 

 not hasten to resume the possessions which we have 

 usurped for a time, but which the silent lapse of ages 

 will infallibly restore to her? 



" Thus the numerous and diversified species of 

 birds, led by instinct arid confined by their wants, to 

 the different districts of Nature, have apportioned 

 among themselves the air, the earth, and the water. 

 Each holds its place and enjoys its little domain, and 



o 



JCj&CIl 



