144 CLASS AVES. 



groves. Do we not observe all granivorous birds search 

 out inhabited countries, and follow the track of cultivation ; 

 while, on the contrary, those which prefer berries and wild 

 fruits, invariably shun the footsteps of man, and in the dense 

 wood, or on the solitary mountain-steep, abide alone with 

 Nature, which has dictated the laws they shall obey, and fur- 

 nished them with the means of such obedience? She it is 

 who retains the wood-hen beneath the thick foliage of the fir- 

 tree ; the solitary blackbird (turdus cyaneus) in the rock ; 

 the loriot in the forest, that re-echoes to his cries ; while 

 the bustard haunts the dry fallow land, and the rail the 

 humid meadow. These are the eternal immutable decrees 

 of Nature, as permanent as the forms of her productions. 

 These are her grand and rightful properties, which she never 

 yields nor abandons, even in things which we imagine we have 

 ourselves appropriated altogether; for, let us have acquired 

 them how we may, they are not the less under her dominion. 

 Has she not, for example, quartered upon us such troublesome 

 guests as the rat in our houses, the swallow under our Avindows, 

 and the sparrow beneath our roofs ? And when she calls the 

 stork to the summit of the ruined tower, within whose walls 

 the night-bird has already taken up his abode, does she 

 not seem hastening to resume the possessions which we have 

 usurped for a period, but which she has commissioned the 

 resistless hand of Time to restore to her domain ?" 



We shall conclude this preliminary essay on birds in gene- 

 ral, with a few observations on their molting, migrations, and 

 habitat. 



It is a truth generally recognized in physiology, that organized 

 bodies are first developed, and then gradually wear out, both ex- 

 ternally and internally, by the action of decomposition, which is 

 antagonist to that of composition. They never remain in a 

 constant state, or in an identical body. The alimentaiy mat- 

 ter, after being assimilated with the animal substance, ends by 

 being decomposed and excreted. The vital force is perpetually 



