ORDER ACCIPITRES. 219 



they are kept about an hour, to allow them to clean and polish 

 their plumage. In winter they are kept abroad during the 

 day, and at night falconers are in the habit of shutting them 

 in warm rooms. This practice is objectionable ; for, as these 

 birds are natives of cold, or, at all events, of temperate cli- 

 mates, it would be sufficient to keep them in sheltered places, 

 without contributing, by too much warmth, to augment the 

 debility, which domestication of itself is calculated to produce. 

 Authors who have written on falconry have entered into long 

 details concerning the maladies of birds of prey, and the modes 

 of their cure. But their treatment of internal cases was, as 

 may well be supposed from the infant state of the medical art 

 in their days, for the most part exceedingly arbitrary. Their 

 prescriptions merit no attention, except in the case of acci- 

 dental wounds ; and, even in this point of view, it would be 

 equally irrelevant and uninteresting to take any notice of them 

 here *. 



* We shall avail ourselves of the present opportunity, to offer, in the 

 shape of a note, a few remarks on the education of animals. This is a 

 very curious and interesting subject, and, perhaps, not less important than 

 curious and interesting. The education of animals has not always met 

 from philosophers the degree of attention it deserves, nor has it, in our 

 opinion, been carried as far in practice as it might have been. We may 

 add, that the mode of conducting it has, in most cases, been extremely 

 erroneous. This is the less to be wondered at, when we recollect who the 

 persons have been who have generally undertaken this important task ; 

 men, for the most part, ignorant and vulgar, obstinately wedded to old 

 methods, unwilling, therefore, to question their merits, and incapable, 

 were they ever so willing, to appreciate their defects, and substitute better 

 systems. 



After what we have said in a former part of this work, on the instinct 

 and intelligence of animals, it is unnecessary to premise that we concede 

 a portion of the latter faculty to the brute creation. Animals, like man, 

 are governed by two grand springs of action, pleasure and ^;a/M .• it is by 

 a judicious management of these, in reference to the intelligent faculty 

 of animals, that their education must be conducted. It is thus that atten- 

 tion is excited and sustained, and attention is the sine qua non of all 



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