CIVIL AND NATURAL. XXV 



more exquisite delight; but I never could learn by whaE 

 right, nor conceive with what feelings a naturalist con 

 occasion the misery of an innocent bird, and leave its 

 young, perhaps, to perish in a cold nest, because ithas 

 gay plumage, and has never been accurately delineat- 

 ed ; or deprive even a butterfly of its natural enjoy- 

 ments, because it has the misfortune to be rare or 

 beautiful ; nor shall I ever forgot the couplet of Fur- 

 dausi, for which Sadi, who cites it with applause, pours 

 blessings on his departed spirit :— 



Ah ! spare yon emmet, rich in hoarded grain ; 

 ' He lives with pleasure, and he dies with pain. 



This may be only a confession of weakness, and it 

 certainly is not meant as a boast of peculiar sensibili- 

 ty ; but whatever name may be given to my opinion, 

 it has such an effect on my conduct, that I never would 

 suffer the Cocila, whose ivild native wood-notes an- 

 nounce the approach of spring, to be caught in my 

 garden, for the sake of comparing it with Btrffhns de- 

 scription ; though I have often examined the domestic 

 and engaging Mayana, which bids us good-morrow at 

 our windows, and expects, as its reward, little more 

 than security : even when a fine young Mantsdt Pan- 

 g-vim was brought me, against my wish, from the 

 mountains, I solicited his restoration to his beloved 

 rocks, because 1 found it impossible to preserve him 

 in comfort at a distance from them. There are seve- 

 ral treatises on animals in Arabic, and very particular 

 accounts of them in I e, with elegant outline's of 



their 



