ORDER ACCIPITRES. 121 



distance as the voice of a man ; and if we consider that the 

 croaking of the raven, the cry of the duck, of the peacock, and 

 of the goose, are perhaps stronger than the bellowing of a bull, 

 or the braying of an ass, we shall find that the bird, in regard 

 of voice, has been more favoured than terrestrial animals. 

 The sea-birds have, for the most part, a voice excessively sono- 

 rous ; for, being obliged to call to each other from considerable 

 distances, and in the midst of the roaring winds, they are forced 

 to give an enormous extension to their cries. 



But the powerful extent of voice in birds would seem to 

 presuppose a similar excellence and analogous modifications 

 in the auricular organs. This, however, is by no means the 

 case. They are not nearly so well provided in this respect as the 

 mammifera. They are musicians rather by instinct and the 

 perfection of their vocal organs than by the ear. They in 

 some measure resemble in this deaf persons, who call exces- 

 sively loud, believing that nobody can hear. Besides, the per- 

 fection of the voice in birds seems to have been a necessary 

 compensation for the defects of the auricular organ, for they 

 have no external conch to the ear. Instead of interior osse- 

 lets, there is nothing found but an osseous plate. A species 

 of cone with two cells, and a little arched, represents the 

 cochlea in quadrupeds. The nocturnal birds, which have more 

 need of this sense, have large cavities attached to the cell of 

 the ear. These melancholy birds send forth plaintive accents, 

 as if Nature had established a sort of harmony between their 

 character, the melancholy silence of night, and their funereal 

 cries. In the same manner the complaining tones of the 

 nightingale are still more touching, from their accordance with 

 the decline of day, as the loud concert of the joyous musi- 

 cians of the fields is in unison with the cheering aspect of the 

 rising sun. 



It is easy to distinguish in the tones of birds, a certain lan- 

 guage. All animals, in fact, have a language, not indeed arti- 

 culate, but most undoubtedly comprehensible by cries and 



