160 NATUKALIST'S CABINET. 



Mr. Bruce'* observations. 



stance : at all events, however, one may be as- 

 sured that the bces'-ncst is very near, when, after 

 the bird has guided its followers to some distance, 

 it is on a sudden silent/' 



Though Dr. Sparnnan asserts, that he was 

 twice eye-witness of this circumstance, yet it is 

 discredited by Mr. Bruce, whose severe and 

 somewhat ill-natured animadversions are as fol- 

 low: 



" 1 cannot, for my own part, conceive that, in 

 a country where there are so many thousand 

 hives, there was any use for giving to a bird a 

 peculiar instinct or faculty of discovering honey, 

 when, at the same time, nature hath deprived 

 him of the power <Jf availing himself of any. ad- 

 vantage from the discovery; for man seems in. 

 this case to be made for the service of the moroc, 

 which is very different from the common and 

 ordinary course of things : man certainly needs 

 not this bird ; for on every tree, and on every 

 hillock, he may see plenty of honey at his own 

 deliberate disposal. I cannot then but think, 

 with all submission to these natural philosophers, 

 (Dr. Sparrman, and Jerome Lobo who has also 

 given an account of this bird,) that the whole 

 of this is an improbable fiction : nor did I ever 

 hear a single person in Abyssinia suggest, that 

 either this or any other bird had such a property. 

 Sparrman says it was not known to any inhabi- 

 tant of the Cape, any more than that of the mo- 

 rot was in Abyssinia; it was a secret of natufl 



