CHAP. I.] BEAUTY OF THE COLUMBIA. 7 



have been hopelessly baffled, had the young Pigeons 

 required to be tended, and fed, and led about, and 

 guarded like little Chickens, for months after their 

 birth; in this case, there would have been no living 

 clouds consisting of millions of individuals, however 

 numerous the hatch from each female might have been ; 

 but in the existing wise arrangement there is no waste, 

 either of time or energetic force ; the coupling of a 

 single male with a single female proves to be an 

 economical plan, instead of the reverse, as those might 

 be apt to fancy on whose thoughts the polygamous 

 domestic Fowl so readily obtrudes itself: the help- 

 lessness and indolence of the young for a time, are 

 only made the means of their sooner becoming able 

 not merely to shift for themselves, but, in their own 

 rapidly-arriving turn, to rear young for themselves. 

 The details to be hereafter given will show how com- 

 pletely and effectually this great end is carried out 

 with the least possible expenditure of time and power. 

 The forcing by gardeners, and the fattening by graziers, 

 indeed all our artificial means of obtaining extra produce, 

 take very second rank when we compare them with the 

 process by which a couple of eggs, in the course of a 

 few weeks, are nursed into a pair of perfect creatures, 

 male and female, able to traverse long distances in 

 search of subsistence, and to fulfil the grand law, " in- 

 crease and multiply." 



This alone would be wonderful; but to the innate 

 energies implanted for useful and necessary ends, we 

 find superadded a further quality beauty. To the 

 Deity alone do works of supererogation belong: He 

 gives what is needful with a paternal liberality, and 

 then is lavish of his bounty, and bestows ornament and 



