external configurations greatly differ from those of the rest of animated nature; but it is a pleasing proof that one Creator has made the whole, and upon one grand general system of construction, although this has been surprisingly diversified in its specific details, that the more exactly these inferior orders are studied, the greater analogy is found to prevail between them and the rest of the sentient kingdoms.*

LETTER XII.

The Bird Creation-Their Plumage and Song-Power of Flight, and Migrations-Numbers and Classes-General Character-and Mental

Faculties.

A NEW System of exterior figure, and a new species of beauty, in the three main sources of the beautiful in material things, and to the surveying eye-form, motion, and colour-arose to visible existence in the feathered creation. From the same causes of agreeable emotions, the fish excite pleasurable sensations in those who gaze upon their placid activity in the calm and clear ocean. And these feelings arise also within us as we handle the shells of the testacea, which are always so neat in figure, polish, hues, and completeness, and often impressively interesting in their most lovely tints and more elegant shapes; all announcing the refined taste and minute execution of their invisible designer. But the BIRDS eminently surpass all the marine classes in their appeals to our sense of beauty in their attractive appearance. Form, motion, finish, and colour are the elements of what is beauteous in both orders of being: but the

* M. G. Cuvier observes of the cephalopodes division of the mollusca, that they have a brain inclosed in a distinct cavity; eyes; ears in the form of two mandibules; a tongue, salivary glands, an esophagus, a throat, a second stomach, an intestinal canal, a liver, heart, arteries, veins, nerves, and the reproductive organs, in common with other vertebrated animals; but all differently disposed, and mostly organized in a different manner."-Bull. Univ. 1830, p. 310.

M le Baron de Ferussac is preparing, and has begun to publish, his Histoire Naturelle des Mollusques, under the orders of the cephalopodes, pteropodes, and gasteropodes. It will be the completest work on the subject that has yet appeared.

Y

lovely and the pleasing emane to us from the sprightly tenants of the trees and air, with more interesting effect than from the inhabitants of the seas. They produce this impression by so very different a modification of bodily configuration, that unless we had experienced it, we should not, beforehand, have thought that such total contrasts of external form could have been each made to produce such a similarity, though not equality, of gratifying result.*

It is in his kingdoms of animated nature that the magnificent and munificent Creator has shown us that beauty has as many forms and varieties as he chooses to display it in; that our intellectual faculty is trainable to an equal sensitivity of discerning and appreciating it; that his power of imagining and producing it is inexhaustible; and that he has purposely so arranged the material particles of our world, that this magical quality is perpetually appearing to our senses with an exuberant and ever-renewing profusion. Nor is it confined to living form. It appears likewise in every department of earthy and inorganic nature. All our knowledge and love of it arises from what has been created to affect us by its presence. Beauty is indeed everywhere about us; and every mind may be sensible of it, that will itself observe it where it exists. For our own sakes we ought to cherish a taste for it; for such are its soothing effects, that it cannot be anywhere seen and felt without a sensible pleasure accompanying the perception. It is therefore an easy and universal source of enjoyment to observe it, from which every class may derive, every day, many moments of gentle exhilaration. The bird classes partake of it so generally, in some respect or other, that the rudest minds become milder or happier from their presence, in all climes and in all ages.†

There is great truth in the following sentiments:-"The main province, the very paradise of nature, is THE BIRDS. The gracefulness of their forms; the exquisite delicacy of their covering; the inimitable brilliancy of their colours; the light and life-giving transparency of the element in which they live; the singular variety of their habits; the delightful melody of their songs, and the remarkable fact, that with organs apparently more unfitted for articulation than many quadrupeds, they are the only animals that can imitate man in the wonders of voice, and rival him in the intricacy of music....These qualities make the study of birds the favourite study of every elegant mind."-Jerdan's Lit. Gaz. No. 672, p. 790.

†The unwearied and excellent ornithologist, who studied his favourite

The plumage of birds is peculiar to their order of crea tion, and is always a pleasurable object both to sight and touch, and remarkable for the skill and delicacy of its composition and structure. In the equatorial regions it is more rich and splendid in its colors, yet always harmonizing in its most contrasted tints, and in its lights and shades. The effect is sometimes gorgeous, but never tawdry. In all its combinations and lustres it gratifies the cultivated taste, and when extensively studied, enlarges the conceptions of the imagination by its elaborate diversity.

Birds also charm the ear as well as regale the sight; and thus satisfy both the most intellectual of our senses. The music and the beauty do not always unite in the same individual in equal excellence. Our nightingale and peacock are instances of the separation. In the Indian hemisphere, both attractions are frequently combined ;* and in North America, the bird that is popularly called the Virginian nightingale is also styled the cardinal, from his brilliant red plumage :† although the one that actually rivals the poetic queen of rural melody is no more distinguished than herself in his personal appearance.‡

subject among the wilder tribes as well as in the civilized provinces of America, has left us this just observation of his large experience: "An intercourse with these little innocent warblers is favourable to delicacy of feeling and to sentiments of humanity; for I have observed the rudest and most savage softened into benevolence, while contemplating the interesting manners of these inoffensive little creatures."-Wilson, Amer. Ornithol. vol. ii. p. 240.

"It is an error to say that nature has denied melody to the birds of hot climates, and formed them only to please the eye with their gaudy plumage. Ceylon abounds with birds equal in song to those of Europe, which warble among the leaves of trees, grotesque in their appearance, and often laden with the most delicious and salubrious fruit. Birds of the richest colours cross the glades; and troops of peacocks complete the charm of the scene, spreading their plumes to a sun that has ample powers to do them justice."...." An Indian forest is the most picturesque scene that can be imagined. The trees seem perfectly animated: the fantastic monkeys give life to the stronger branches; and the weaker sprays wave over your head, charged with vocal and various plumed inhabitants."-Penn. Ind. Zool. 45.

↑ The cardinal grosbeak of America, whose notes, Dr. Latham says, "are almost equal to those of the nightingale."...." Their notes are very various and musical: many of them resemble the high-notes of a fife, and are nearly as loud. They begin at the first appearance of dawn; and repeat a favourite stanza or passage twenty or thirty times successively. His sprightly figure and gaudy plumage; his vivacity, strength of voice, and actual variety of note; and the little expense with which he is kept, will always make him a favourite."-Wilson's Am. Orn. vol. ii. p. 274.

"Our inimitable mocking-bird is acknowledged to be fully equal to

The birds of song abound in every known country; in the new continent, as much as in our older or longer inhabited one. But as they are seldom found in the depth of the dense and damp forests of any country, they are the more usual companions of civilized man.* They frequent most the cleared and cultivated plains, as if by kind appointment to increase the number of human pleasures, by warbling their own feelings and happiness in those melodies which delight the human ear as much as themselves. Neither childhood nor manhood can hear them with indifference. Their notes are everywhere a large addition to human gratification, and become connected with the sweetest remembrances of the most joyous and impressible season of our life. They are usually small birds, and seem to be indestructible; for although cultivation, as it spreads, drives off many other species, yet by supplying these with more of the food they like best, they multiply from its abundance; and wherever gardens, fields, or trees appear, some classes of these rural musicians are sure to be part of their feathered inhabitants. Of these, England possesses a pleasing share.t

the song of the nightingale in its whole compass."...." His plumage nas nothing gaudy or brilliant in it. In his native groves, mounted on the top of a tall bush or half-grown tree, in the dawn of a dewy morning, while the woods are already vocal with a multitude of warblers, his admirable song rises pre-eminent over every competitor. The ear can listen to his music alone, to which that of all the others seems a mere accompaniment. His own native notes are bold and full; and varied seemingly beyond all limits. His expanded wings and tail glistening with white, and the buoyant gayety of his action, arresting the eye as his song most irresistibly does the ear, he sweeps round with enthusiastic ecstasy, and mounts or descends as his song swells or dies away."Wilson, A. O. vol. ii. p. 92.

"The opinion, that the music of the woods and groves of America is far inferior to that of Europe, I, who have a thousand times listened to both, cannot admit to be correct. We cannot with fairness draw a comparison between the depth of the forest in America and the cultivated fields of England; because it is a well-known fact that singingbirds seldom frequent the former in any country. But let the latter places be compared with the like situations in the United States, and the superiority of song would justly belong to the western continent."— Wilson, vol. ii. p. 275.

The blackbird is the largest song-bird of England, and sings both spring and summer.-Albin's Nat. Hist. English Song-birds, p. 2..... The song-thrush warbles for nine months of the year.-P. 7...The goldfinch is valued for the elegance of its colour as well as for its singing, as it is "the most beautiful and finest feathered of all cage birds. P. 20.....The bullfinch, which combines a very pleasing form with a

Birds are distinguished from all other animals by their power of supporting such a weight as their bodies in a medium so light as air; and from which, by the laws of gravity alone, they would fall downwards like a stone, the instant they left their twig. They prevent this prone descent, and sustain their heavy bodies in an aerial fluid which is some hundred times lighter than these, and at the same time move through it more rapidly than any other class of animated beings can pass through it on the ground, by the amazing strength and moveability of their pectoral muscles, and by the expansile form and peculiar texture of their feathered wings. These muscles, the breast of the birds we eat, constitute half of the whole flesh of their body; and enable them to supply that quantity of the functional energy which actuates them to their action of flying.* Thus a moiety of all their nervous and muscular powers is exerted and expended in this operation.

Here again the most special and scientific calculation, with a specific adaptation, become manifest to our consideration. No blind force or random power or motion could have here availed. A deliberating and knowing mind must have been their creator, combining what we term mathematical and mechanical science. The bodies of every species of birds differ in weight and bulk. But in order that they may fly, and remain suspended in the air while they do so, the motive energies of each must be precisely proportioned to the two things so very dissimilar to the gravity of his individual substance, and to the tenuity of the air through which he must glide and float. No general fitness would do; each distinct kind must have had allotted to fine voice, has no song of its own, but excels most birds in that which he learns.-P. 16..... The linnet is thought by many to surpass all small birds in the sweetness of its singing.-P. 34.....The skylark has great freeness and strength in his notes, which are heard for at least eight months of the year.-P. 41..... But the woodlark is still more admired He is also a bird of for his great variety of soft and delightful tones.

great beauty, both in shape and plumage.-P. 50..... The wren, although the smallest bird found in England, sings very sweetly for several months, and with a louder voice than we should expect from his little form. Whether upon a barn or tree in a farmer's yard (which they mostly frequent), or in a cage, they seem to sing with equal pleasure.P. 70.....The common hedge-sparrow "is a very pleasant song-bird: he sings sweetly, and has a great variety of pretty notes."-P. 89.

* Borelli, de motu Anim. p. 260. He adds, that fish, having to move through a denser medium, have double this force.-Ib.