mTRODUCTION. 
Ixxxi 
become the parents of a new race. The vital principle is peculiajly active 
in them, and though they shoot almost instantaneously into fullness of 
being, their existence is prolonged, in proportion to their size, beyond the 
term of life in man or quadrupeds. Of that term in man, one-half is 
consumed in the imbecility of infancy, the raw period of youth, and the 
weakness and dotage of old age ; but birds are gifted by nature with the 
peculiar advantage of passing but a few weeks in imbecile listlessness ; and 
some of them, as soon as their eyes open on the light, begin to provide 
for themselves. Ravens are said to live beyond a century, and the life of 
the Eagle is extended as long ; Parrots and Geese are reported to exceed in 
age the common date of the age of man ; and it has been averred, that 
Swans have seen a revolution of years far beyond the life of Nestor. Even 
the smaller species enjoy a proportionate vivaciousness ; Larks,®* Linnets, and 
Goldfinches have lived beyond twenty years. It appears, in general, that 
those birds, which are covered with down at their exclusion from the egg, 
enjoy the longest period of life. 
** In a little village, in which the Author once resided, the age of a Skylark was celebrated, 
on a brass plate, in tlac fbllowing rustic lines : 
“ Within this wall there lies a Lark, 
Whose age I think well worth remark | 
‘ Take fifty-five from seventy-three, 
“ And then his age exact you see. 
And in remembrance of his age, 
“ These lines were writ beneath his cage.” 
This plate was placed in the most conspicuous situation, immediately opposite to the 
entrance, and the owner did not plume himself a little on this high flight of village poesy. 
He took care to inform the reader, that he wrote it all hi?nself ; nor did Homer for his Iliad, or 
Milton for his Paradise Lost, feel more parental fondness than the writer of these lines. So 
ardent are mankind for fame, and so thirsting with desire to obtain it, that many, who have no 
hopes of being enrolled and immortalized in the pages of history, content themselves with being 
recorded on the face of the parish clock. The bird was full grown when it came into the owner'* 
possession ; and it must, at least, have been nineteen years old. 
M 
