INTRODUCTION. 
xxvi 
able degree, their various paffions, wants, and feelings, muft be 
particularly noticed :* The great power of their voice, by which 
they can communicate their fentiments and intentions to each 
other, and by that means are able to adt by mutual concert, ad- 
ded to that of the wing, by which they can remove from place 
to place with inconceivable celerity and difpatch, is peculiar to 
the feathered tribes ; it gives them a decided fuperiority over 
every fpecies of quadrupeds, and affords them the greatefl means 
of fafety from thofe attacks to which their weaknefs would 
otherwife expofe them. The focial inftindl among birds is pe- 
culiarly lively and interelling, and likewife proves an effectual 
means of prefervation from the various arts which are made ufe 
of to circumvent and deftroy them. Individuals may perifh, 
and the fpecies may fuffer a diminution of its numbers ; but its 
inftindls, habits, and oeconomy remain entire. 
* White’s Selborne? 
