334 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



warm ; teach them to pick, and eat, and gather 

 food for themselves ; and, in a word, perform the 

 pai't of so many nurses, deputed by the Sovereign 

 Lord and Preserver of the world to help such 

 young and shiftless creatures !" Neither ought it, 

 under this head, to be forgotten, how much the 

 instinct costs the animal which feels it; how much 

 a bird, for example, gives up by sitting upon her 

 nest ; how repugnant it is to her organization, her 

 habits and her pleasures. An animal, formed for 

 liberty, submits to confinement, in the very season 

 when every thing invites her abroad : what is 

 more, an animal delighting in motion, made for 

 motion, all whose motions are so easy, and so free, 

 hardly a moment, at other times, at rest, is, for 

 many hours of many days together, fixed to her 

 nest, as close as if her limbs were tied down by 

 pins and wires. For my part, I never see a bird 

 in that situation but I recognise an invisible hand, 

 detaining the contented prisoner from her fields 

 and groves, for the purpose, as the event proves, 

 the most worthy of the sacrifice, the most impor- 

 tant, the most beneficial. 



But the loss of hberty is not the whole of what 

 the procreant bird suflfers. Harvey tells us that 

 he has often found the female wasted to skin and 

 bone by sitting upon her eggs. 



One observation more, and I will dismiss the 

 subject. The pcm-ing of birds, and the non-jKiir- 

 ing of beasts, forms a distinction between the two 

 classes, which shows that the conjugal instinct is 



