PREYERS UPON MAN. 207 



themselves " at home " in reality under the unwilling shelter 

 of his wing. This, however, with a real pet bird one, that is 

 to say, kept with cleanliness is a rare if not unknown occur- 

 rence, for the above tormentor of imprisoned warblers is chiefly 

 found in dirty or neglected cages. On this account it needs 

 especial care never to introduce a feathered favourite into an 

 abode which has been pre-occupied, without subjecting it, 

 first, to proper ablution and fumigation. 



Ascending to quadrupeds, it is needless to whisper in ears 

 polite the name of that exciting cause, or causes, under which 

 our " Marlboroughs " are apt to forget their high breeding, 

 and our "King Charles's" to encroach on their parlour pre- 

 rogatives. 



Grimalkin, with her own nine lives, has been said by Lin- 

 naeus to possess a happy immunity from the burthen of car- 

 rying other lives about her ; but we are more inclined to be- 

 lieve, with less distinguished naturalists, that while Puss is 

 imbibing the yet warm juices of a mouse, a hungry flea may 

 be similarly employed in sucking up her own. 



We come now to the insect preyers on lordly man, of whom 

 the lordliest, the kings and potentates of earth, have furnished 

 some striking and most horrible examples of how the meanest 

 and most despicable of earth's denizens have been employed 

 by the Almighty Hand to lower the pride and reprove the 

 cruelty of tyrants and oppressors. 



Antiochus Epiphanes, Sylla, the two Herods, and the second 



