CHAPTER OF VARIETIES. 



375 



" increase and multiply," they again betook themselves to the task of 

 building a third nest under the same sheltering roof, and for this pur- 

 pose chose another shelf, in a different corner of the same room, and 

 there in their mossy bed on a bundle of papers on the 21st of June, I 

 saw four half-fledged nestlings which the parent birds were feeding, 

 while a party of us were watching their proceedings. I am wrong 

 perhaps in saying the parent birds, for the hen alone entered the room 

 while we were there, the cock bird contenting himself with observing 

 us from the outside. There can be no doubt, that the same pair of 

 birds belonged to each successive nest, as the loss of her tail rendered 

 the hen conspicuous amongst her kindred in the neighbourhood. — J. R. 

 Bath, 10 July, 1833. 



Natural theology — Paley's doctrine of compensation. — 

 To hold that the " compensatory providence of God, " (an objectionable 

 if not an incorrect term of itself, and not used by Paley), is one of the 

 two principles which are to be traced throughout the works of nature, 

 {Nat. Theol., ch. xvi.), is in effect to bring down the faculties of the 

 Divine Mind to a resemblance of, if not equality with our own imperfect 

 powers. It is to admit the possibility of after- thought and improve- 

 ment on works before made by an all- competent artist ; for the very 

 idea of compensation presupposes defect, and necessarily implies the 

 supply of this defect by counteracting contrivances. And even if, for 

 argument's sake, and with a view to the expression a compensating pro- 

 vidence," as understood in its most literal sense, the Divine Architect 

 be supposed to have counselled with himself previous to the actual for- 

 mation of his creatures, it is rather a clumsy expedient to make him 

 conceive the idea of a being having a structure inadequate to his 

 intended functions, and then supply the imagined deficiency by a differ- 

 ent species of mechanism. If the doctrine is designed merely to accom- 

 modate human views of nature, that is, to show the impressions which 

 the various apparent contrivances of Deity make on our minds, it 

 is scarcely correct to give it a place so conspicuous in a work on 

 natural theology, or in an elementary treatise. — Quarterly Journal of 

 Education. 



Redstart not rare in Scotland. — I was surprised to see that 

 the redstart was included among the scarce birds in Scotland, in an 

 article on that subject in your magazine of last month ; having always 

 considered it rather common, not only in the neighbourhood of Edin- 

 burgh, but also in the more mountainous parts of Bamffshire. In the 



