THEORIES. 159 



be particularly gifted and peculiarly designed' 7 for 

 promulgating " with a view to enlighten the world,' r 

 and which accordingly he did procure to be printed 

 and published just forty years ago. To be sure that 

 theory was incidental and preliminary to another not 

 quite so simple and satisfactory, although as much a 

 certainty as some of the theories of animals that have 

 been promulgated by men of more lofty name than 

 the curate of Brendon. But the preliminary theory is 

 worth quoting. " The flux and reflux of the sea," 

 says he, " is to be attributed, in a great measure at 

 least, to its settled natural course of so doing;" and 

 really we fear that in very many points of the animal! 

 economy, our real information goes no further, inas- 

 much as the supplemental explanations of the ration- 

 ale of their conduct, upon the principles of human 

 action, are in fact no part of animal history at all ; but 

 are, in reality, nothing more than the old superstitions 

 and credulities, decked out in the fustian of false 

 philosophy. 



And yet there are some curious practices about 

 rooks, the causes of which one would like to know, 

 if they were knowable matters. They go back to the 

 same wood, though not to the nesting place of it, 

 every night : we cannot know the fact accurately, but 

 from the analogy of other birds, we have no reason to 

 doubt that the very same pair, after being perfectly 

 indifferent to each other for more than half the year, 

 go back to the same nest to rear a new brood, when- 

 ever the warmth of the season, the stimulus of fresh 

 food, or " their settled natural course of so doing" 

 impels them so to do. They hold a sort of council ; two 



