80 
THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS. 
it, and water would soften and render it easy to be 
swallowed, this knowledge must be acquired by ob" 
servation 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 rea- 
son, or instinct, it is the same that a sensible man 
would have done in this case. After the same man- 
ner 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 till 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 sentiments, that those who have paid the 
most minute attention to their manners are uniformly 
their advocates and admirers.^ 
