OUDER GRALL.i:. 473 



rowness of his understanding, has imposed this contemp- 

 tuous appellation on those portions of the globe which 

 are yet sacred from his invasion. Such was once the case 

 with those tracts of territory which he has long reduced 

 to cultivation, and the time must come, when he will 

 subdue in the same manner, every habitable corner of 

 the earth. Those vast solitudes of South America, those 

 immense and ancient forests, which fall and are renewed 

 without his intervention, will one day disappear. Mighty 

 edifices will be raised upon the ruins of those gigantic chil- 

 dren of the vegetable kingdom. The fresh and humid soil 

 will be dried up, and become the beaten track of human 

 population, and support the weight of towns and cities. 

 Numerous habitations will replace the rarely scattered huts 

 of tribes yet uncivilized. Culture will prevail over the lands 

 which are now spontaneously covered with a multitude of 

 plants ; then, perhaps, the species of which we are writing 

 will be destroyed for ever, or reduced to the slavish exist- 

 ence which man calls domestication. 



Among foreign cranes we must first notice, following the 

 order of the text, the Ardea Pavonina, Crowned Heron ox 

 Latham. 



This bird, which was brought into Europe about the fif- 

 teenth century, from that part of the African coast then disco- 

 vered, owes its name to the tuft of hairs which it can display at 

 pleasure, spreading over the occiput. The gait of this crane 

 is noble, and its form elegant. It is about four feet high. 



The crowned heron is an inhabitant of the warmest cli- 

 mates. It is found in Africa, especially in the countries of 

 Gambra, on the Gold Coast, in Fida, at Cape Verd, in 

 Whida, and in the neighbourhood of the river of Pouny, in 

 Guinea. The Africans, who hold it in high veneration, call 

 it the herald of the Fetish, because it makes a noise with its 

 wings something like the sound of a French horn. This 



