CONCLUSION. 313 



table or animal production which some species of 

 bird does not seem created to feed upon ; and that, 

 speaking- generally, wherever that peculiar production 

 is to be found, there is also to be found the particular 

 kind of bird to which it furnishes wholesome food. 

 With some striking examples of this kind the sports- 

 man of our own country is well acquainted. He 

 finds the partridge in the plains, the woodcock in 

 the forests, the grouse on the moors, and the ptar- 

 migan on the loftiest peak of the mountains. He 

 knows too that other species migrate from country 

 to country, seeking their food in distant regions, 

 over trackless oceans, and through an extended 

 atmosphere, when it fails in their native haunts. The 

 ornithologist is aware that instances of this kind are 

 not confined to the birds of game alone, but form a 

 rule so universal as to deserve a place among the 

 wonderful adaptations which exist between the animal 

 and vegetable worlds. We have already remarked 

 the astonishing celerity with which, in tropical coun- 

 tries, vultures and other birds of prey congregate from 

 all quarters of the heavens around a dead carcase to 

 devour it, indicating at once the acuteness of their 

 sight, and the remarkable provision which has been 

 thus made for the destruction of what might other- 

 wise injuriously infect the atmosphere ; and we may 

 now rank this fact among those that establish, or at 

 least illustrate, the wise arrangements to which we 

 have been adverting. 



We are reminded, by what has been just said, of 

 the peculiar intensity of some of the senses in certain 

 species of birds, which opens another view of the 

 wise and beneficent provisions of Providence. It is 

 by the remarkable strength of their vision that birds 

 of prey are enabled to mark their quarry at a height 

 where, to the human eye, they themselves are almost 

 invisible, and from whence, with incredible velocity, 



