FERRUGINOUS THRUSH. 237 



he would throw them up, cany, and put them in his water 

 dish to soften ; then take them out and swallow them. Many- 

 other remarkable circumstances might be mentioned that 

 would fully demonstrate faculties of mind; not only innate, 

 but acquired ideas (derived from necessity in a state of 

 domestication), which we call understanding and knowledge- 

 We see that this bird could associate those ideas, arrange and 

 apply them in a rational manner, according to circumstances. 

 For instance, if he knew that it was the hard sharp corners of 

 the crumb of bread that hurt his gullet, and prevented him 

 from swallowing it, and that water would soften, and render 

 it easy to be swallowed, this knowledge must be acquired by 

 observation and experience ; or some other bird taught him. 

 Here the bird perceived, by the effect, the cause, and then 

 took the quickest, the most effectual, and agreeable method to 

 remove that cause. What could the wisest man have done 

 better ? Call it reason, or instinct, it is the same that a 

 sensible man would have done in this case. 



" After the same manner this bird reasoned with respect to 

 the wasps. He found, by experience and observation, that 

 the first he attempted to swallow hurt his throat, and gave 

 him extreme pain ; and, upon examination, observed that the 

 extremity of the abdomen was armed with a poisonous sting ; 

 and, after this discovery, never attempted to swallow a wasp 

 until he first pinched his abdomen to the extremity, forcing 

 out the sting, with the receptacle of poison." 



It is certainly a circumstance highly honourable to the 

 character of birds, and corroborative of the foregoing senti- 

 ments, that those who have paid the most minute attention to 

 their manners are uniformly their advocates and admirers. 

 " He must," said a gentleman to me the other day, when 

 speaking of another person, — " he must be a good man ; for 

 those who have long known him, and are most intimate with 

 him, respect him greatly, and always speak well of him." 



