BRITISH BIRDS. 
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zel ; its general colour is reddifh, mixed with 
brown on the upper parts, the under parts are con- 
liderably paler, being almofi: white at the vent ; 
the wings are fliort, not reaching farther than the 
fetting on of the tail — they are of a brown colour ; 
the tail is of the fame colour, and fomewhat fork- 
ed ; the legs are black ; the colours of the Crofs- 
bill are extremely fubjedt to variation; amongft a 
great number there are hardly two of them exadtly 
food. This mode of reafoning, however, muft prove very de- 
fective, when we confider that this peculiarity is confined to a 
fingle fpecies, no other bird in nature being fubjeCt to a fimilar 
variation from the general conftruCtion, although there are many 
other birds which feed upon the fame kinds of hard fubftances, 
which, neverthelefs, do not experience any change in the for- 
mation and ftru&ure of their bills ; neither has the argument, 
drawn from the fuppofed exuberance of growth in the bills of 
thefe birds, any better foundation, as that likewife may be ap- 
plied to other birds, and the fame queftion will occur — namely. 
Why is not the fame effeCt produced ? This ingenious but fan- 
ciful writer, in the further profecution of his argument, feems to 
increafe the difficulties in which it is involved. He obferves, 
s< that the bill, hooked upwards and downwards, and bent in 
oppofite direClions, feems to have been formed for the purpofe of 
detaching the fcales of the fir cones and obtaining the feeds lodg- 
ed beneath them, which are the principal food of the bird. It 
raifes each fcale with its lower mandible, and breaks it with the 
upper.” We think there needs no ftronger argument than this 
to prove, that Nature, in all her operations, works by various 
means ; and although thefe are not always clear to our limited 
underftandings, the good of all her creatures is the one great 
end to which they are all directed. 
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