BiiiDS. 225 



Chaste are their instincts, fnitliful Is their fire. 



No foreign beauty tempts to false desire : 

 The snow-white vesture, and tlie glittering crown, 

 The sinipli" plumage, or the glossy down, 

 Prompt not their love. The patriot bird pursues 

 His weH acquainted tints, and kindred hues : 

 Hence thro' their tribes no mix'd polluted flame. 

 No monster-breed to mark the groves with sliamt : 



But the chaste blackbird, to its p:u-tner true, 



Think's black alone is Beauty's fav'rite hue : 



The nightingale, with mutual passion bless'd. 



Sings to its mate, and nightly charms the nest : 



While the dark owl, to court his partner flies. 



And owns his offspring in their yellow eyes. 



But whatever may be the poet's opinion, the pioTjability is 

 against this fidelity among the smaller tenants of the grove. The 

 great birds are much more true to their species than these ; and, 

 of consequence, the varieties among them are more few. Of the 

 ostrich, the cassowary, and the eagle, there are but few species ; 

 and no arts that man can use could probably induce them to mix 

 with each other. 



But it is otherwise with the small birds we are describing ; it 

 requires very little trouble to make a species between d gold- 

 finch, and a canary-bird, between a linnet and a lark. They 

 breed frequently together ; and produce a race, not like the mules 

 among quadrupeds, incapable of breeding again ; for this motley 

 mixture are as fruitful as their parents. What is so easily done 

 by art, very probably happens in a state of nature ; and when the 

 male cannot find a mate of his own species he iiies to one of 

 another, that, like him, has been left out in pairing. This, some 

 historians think, may have given rise to the great variety of small 

 birds that are seen among us ; some uncommon mixture might 

 .<'-st have formed a new species, and this might have been con- 

 tinued down, by birds of this species choosing to breed together. 



Whether the great variety of our small birds may have arisen 

 from this source cannot now be ascertained j but certain it is 

 that they resemble each other very strongly, not only in their 

 form and plumage, but also in their appetites and manner of liv 

 ing. The gold-finch, the linnet, and the yellow-hammer, though 

 obviously of different species, yet lead a very similar life ; being 

 equally an active, lively, salacious tribe, that subsist by petty 

 thefts uoon the labours of mankind, and repay them with a son-c. 



