■ — 
BRITISH BIRDS. 
■ » HI top — " ~TT I 
BIRDS OF PRET. 
Rapacious birds, or thofe which fubfift chiefly 
on flefh, are much lefs numerous than ravenous 
quadrupeds ; and it feems wifely provided by na- 
ture, that their powers fhould be equally confined 
and limited as their numbers ; for if, to the rapid 
flight and penetrating eye of the Eagle, were join- 
ed the flrength and voracious appetite of the Lion, 
the Tiger, or the Glutton, no artifice could evade 
the one, and no fpeed could efcape the other. 
The characters of birds of the ravenous kind 
are particularly ftrong, and eafily to be diftinguifh- 
ed ; the formidable talons, the large head, the 
flrorig and crooked beak, indicate their ability for 
rapine and carnage ; their difpofitions are fierce, 
and their nature untraCtable ; unfociable and cruel, 
they avoid the haunts of civilization, and retire to 
the moft melancholy and wild recelfes of nature, 
where they can enjoy, in gloomy folitude, the ef- 
fects of their depredatory excurfions. The fierce- 
nefs of their nature extends even to their young, 
B 
