HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



BOOK I. 



OF BIRDS IN GENERAL. 



CHAP. I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



We are now come to a beautiful and loquacious race of animals, 

 that embellish our forests, amuse our walks, and exclude soli- 

 tude from our most shady retirements. P\'om these man has 

 nothing to fear ; their pleasures, their desires, and even their 

 animosities, only serve to enliven the general picture of nature, 

 and give harmony to meditation. 



No part of nature appears destitute of inhabitants. The 

 woods, the waters, the depths of the earth, have their respective 

 tenants -, while the yielding air, and those tracts of seeming space 

 where man never can ascend, are also passed through by multi- 

 tudes of the most beautiful beings of the creation. 



Every order and rank of animals seems fitted for its situation 

 in life •, but none more apparently than birds ; they share, in 

 common with the stronger race of quadrupeds, the vegetable 

 spoils of the earth ; are supplied with swiftness, to compensate 

 for their want of force ; and have a faculty of ascending into the 

 air, to avoid that power which they cannot oppose. 



The bird seems formed entirely for a life of escape ; and 

 eveiy part of the anatomy of the animal seems calculated for 

 swiftness. As it is designed to rise upon air, all its parts are 

 proportionably light, and expand a large surface without solidity. 



In a comparative view with man, their formation seems mucli 



III. A 



