33^ Sir Everard Homers account of 
more accurate observers refuting us, be satisfied that no such 
structure exists . 
There are, perhaps, no more curious provisions given to 
animals by their Creator, than those which are to be em- 
ployed for the preservation of their young, while it yet re- 
mains in the egg ; but as many of these belong to the organs 
of generation themselves, or arise from secretions produced 
by glands immediately connected with them, they pass un- 
noticed, the mind being lost in the contemplation of so won- 
derful a contrivance as generation itself. 
The present provision for forming a nest out of its own 
secretions, in an animal of so high an order as the class 
Aves, strikes us with astonishment, since birds in all other 
countries find substances of some kind or other out of which 
they form their nests, and makes it evident that this particu- 
lar bird, at the time of its first creation, was intended to be 
the inhabitant of the caverns of Java, in which nothing is to 
be met with out of whfth a nest could be constructed, as 
the camel is adapted to the sandy deserts of which it is the 
natural inhabitant, both by the provision in its stomach for 
carrying a store of water, and the form of its hoof, which can- 
not, like that of other animals, be injured by walking in sand. 
The swallows of Java that reside upon the coast, never 
exhaust their secretions in forming their nests when they 
find other materials fitted for that purpose. 
The nearest approach to a provision of this kind, is in the 
insect tribe, the bee secreting wax out of which it forms its 
comb, both for the nest of its young, and a reservoir to con- 
tain supplies of nourishment. 
The nest described in the preceding Paper, appears to con- 
