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feathers of the penguins, particularly those of the wings, consist chiefly of thin flat shafts, and more resemble scales than feathers; those of the tail like split whale-bone.

SECT. II.-OF THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS.

The flight of birds is various; for, had all the same, none could elude that of rapacious birds. Those which are much on wing, or flit from place to place, often owe their preservation to that cause; those in the water to diving.

Kites, and many of the falcon tribe, glide smoothly through the air, with scarcely any apparent motion of the wings. Most of the order of pies fly quick, with a frequent repetition of the motion of the wings. The bird of Paradise floats on the air. Wood-peckers fly aukwardly, and by jerks, and have a propensity to sink in their progress.

The gallinaceous tribe, in general, fly very strong and swiftly; but their course is seldom long, by reason of the weight of their bodies.

The columbine race is of singular swiftness; witness the flight of the carrier pigeon. The passerine fly with a quick repetition of strokes; their flight, except in migration, is seldom distant. Among them, the swallow tribe is remarkably agile, their evolutions sudden, and their continuance on wing long.

The struthious race cannot fly; but still, in running, their short wings are of use when erect, to collect the wind, and accelerate their motion. Many of the greater cloven-footed water-fowls, or waders, have a slow and flagging flight; but most of the less fly swiftly, and most of them with extended legs, to compensate the shortness of their tails. Rails and gallinules fly with their legs hanging down. Coots and grebes with difficulty are forced from the water; but, when they rise, fly swiftly.

Grebes and also divers fly with their hind parts downwards, by reason of the forwardness of their wings. Web-footed fowls are various in their flight. Several have a sailing or flagging wing, such as gulls. Penguins, and a species of auk, are denied the power of flight. Wild geese, in their migrations, fly off in a regular figure, in order to cut the air with greater ease; for example, in long lines, in the figure of a>, which the ancients report that the cranes assumed in their annual migrations, till their order was broken by storms.

The flight of birds is much assisted by their being endowed with the peculiar faculty of enlarging their bulk at will; and from this circumstance the animal is enabled to buoy itself up the easier in the air, its specific gravity being lessened in proportion as the bulk is increased.

This arises from certain air-vessels communicating with the lungs, and dispersed over various parts of the body, whereby the bird, by filling or emptying these vessels, has the of contracting or dilating itself according to the occasion it may have for the change. See Zoo

TOMY.

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till the cares of incubation and educating the young brood is past. Birds that lose their mates early, associate with others; and birds that lose their first eggs will pair and lay again. The male as well as the female, of several, join alternately in the act of incubation, and always in that of nutrition; when the young are hatched, both are busied in looking out for and bringing food to the nestlings; and at that period the

mates of the melodious tribes, who before were alleviated the care of the females confined to the perched on some sprig, and by their warbling nest, now join in the common duty.

Of the gallinaceous tribe, the greatest part are polygamous, at least in a tame state; the pheabustards are monogamous. sants, many of the grouse, the partridges, and

The males of polygamous birds neglect their if they met with them. The economy of the young; and, in some cases, would destroy them struthious order, in this respect, is obscure. It is probable that the birds which compose it are polygamous, like the common poultry, for they lay many eggs; the dodo, however, is said to lay

but one.

All waders or cloven-footed fowls are monogamous; and all with pinnated feet are also monogamous, except the ruffs. The swimmers, or web-footed fowls, observe the same order.

The affection of birds to their young is very Strong during the whole time of nutrition, or as long as they continue in a helpless state; but, as soon as the brood can fly and shift for itself, the parents neglect, and even drive it from their haunts; the affection ceasing with the necessity

for it.

The nest of a bird is one of those daily wonders that, from its familiarity, is passed over without regard. Each bird, after nuptials, prepares a place suited to its species, for depositing its eggs and sheltering its little brood; different genera, and different species, set about the task in a manner suitable to their several natures;

yet every individual of the same species collects the same kind of materials, puts them together in the same form, and chooses the same sort of The young bird of the last year, which never situation for placing this temporary habitation. saw the building of a nest, pursues the same plan in the structure of it, and selects the same materials, as its parents did before. Birds of the same species, of different and remote countries, do the same.

The swallows of Britain, and of

the remoter parts of Germany, observe the same order of architecture; and in many instances have been known to return to the same places in which they had reared their young the year before.

The nests of the larger rapacious birds are rude, made of sticks, and bents, but often lined with something soft; they generally build in high rocks, ruined towers, and in desolate places; enemies to the whole feathered creation, they seek solitude. A few build upon the ground. Shrikes, allied to the rapacious birds, build their nests in bushes, with moss, wool, &c. The order of pies is very irregular in the structure of their nests. Parrots, and in fact all birds with two toes forward and two backward,

lay their eggs in the hollows of trees. And The nuthatch lays often inthe year, eight at a most of this order creep along the bodies of trees, and lodge their eggs also within them. Crows build in trees: among them, the nest of the magpie, composed of rude materials, is made with much art, quite covered with thorns, and only a hole left for admittance.

The nests of the orioles are contrived with wonderful sagacity, and are hung at the end of some bough, or between the forks of extreme branches. In Europe only three birds have pensile nests; the common oriole, the parus pendulinus or hang-nest titmouse, and one more. But in the torrid zone, where the birds fear the search of the gliding serpent and inquisitive monkey, the instances are very frequent; a marvellous instinct implanted in them for the preservation of their young. See ORIOLUS.

All of the gallinaceous and struthious orders lay their eggs on the ground. The ostrich is the only exception, among birds, of the want of natural affection; which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmneth them in the dust, and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or the wild beast may break them.'

The columbine race make a most artless nest, a few sticks laid across may suffice. Most of the passerine order build their nests in shrubs or bushes, and some in holes of walls or banks. Several in the torrid zone are pensile from the boughs of high trees; that of the tailor bird is a wondrous instance. Some of this order, such as larks, and the goatsucker, on the ground. Some swallows make a curious plaster nest beneath the roofs of houses; and an Indian species, nests of a certain glutinous matter, which are collected as delicate ingredients for soups of Chinese epicures.

Most of the cloven-footed water fowls, or waders, lay upon the ground. Spoonbills and the common herons build in trees, and make large nests with sticks, &c. Storks build on churches, or the tops of houses. Coots make a great nest near the water side. Grebes, in the water, a floating nest, adhering generally to some neighbouring reeds.

Web-footed fowls breed on the ground, as the avosets, terns, some of the gulls, mergansers, and ducks; the last pull the down from their breasts to make a softer and warmer bed for their young. Auks and guillemots lay their eggs on the naked shelves of high rocks; penguins, in holes under ground: among the pelicans, that which gives name to the genus makes its nest in the desert, on the ground. Shags sometimes on trees; cormorants and gannets on high rocks, with sticks, dried algæ, and other coarse materials. Rapacious birds, in general, lay few eggs; eagles and the larger kinds fewer than the lesser. The eggs of falcons and owls are rounder than those of most other birds; they lay more than

six.

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time, white, spotted with brown. The hoopoe lays but two cinereous eggs. The creeper lays a great number of eggs. The honeysucker, the least and most defenceless of birds, lays but two; but the extinction of the genus is prevented by a swiftness of flight that eludes every pursuit.

The gallinaceous order, the most useful of any to mankind, lay the most eggs, from eight to. twenty. 'Benigna circa hoc natura, innocua, et esculenta animalia fœcunda generavit,' is a fine observation of Pliny; with exception of the bustard, a bird that hangs between the gallinaceous and the waders, which lays only two. The columbine order lay but two white eggs; but the domestic kind, breeding almost every month, supports the remark of the Roman naturalist.

All of the passerine order lay from four to six eggs, except the titmouse and the wren, which lay fifteen or eighteen, and the goatsucker, which lays only two. The struthious order disagree much in the number of eggs; the ostrich laying many, as far as fifty, the dodo but one.

The cloven-footed water fowls, or waders, lay, in general, four eggs; the crane and the Norfolk plover seldom more than two. All of the snipe and plover genus are of a dirty white, or olive spotted with black, and scarcely to be distinguished in the holes they lay in. The land rails (an ambiguous species) lay from fifteen to twenty. Of birds with pinnated feet, the coot lays seven or eight eggs and sometimes more. Grebes from four to eight, and those white.

The web-footed, or swimmers, differ in the number of their eggs. Those which border on the order of waders lay few eggs; the avoset two; the flamingo three; the albatross, the auks, and guillemots, lay only one egg a piece: the eggs of the two last are of a size strangely large in proportion to the bulk of the birds. They are commonly of a pale green color, spotted and striped so variously, that not two are alike; which gives every individual the means of distinguishing its own on the naked rock where such multitudes assemble. Divers lay only two. Teins and gulls lay about three eggs, of a dirty olive, spotted with black. Ducks lay from eight to twenty eggs; the eggs of all the genus are of a pale green, or white, and unspotted. Penguins probably lay but one egg.

Of the pelican genus, the gannet lays but one egg; the shags or cormorants six or seven, all white; the last the most oblong of eggs.

A minute account of the eggs of birds might occupy a treatise of itself. This is only meant to show the great conformity in the shape and colors of congenerous birds; and that the same uniformity of color is in the eggs as in the plumage of the birds they belong to.

Zinanni published at Venice, in 1737, A Treatise on Eggs, illustrated with accurate figures of 106 eggs. Mr. Reyger of Dantzic published, in 1766, a posthumous work by Klein, with twentyone plates, elegantly colored.

SECT IV. OF SYSTEMS OF ORNITHOLOGY.

Of the many systems that have been offered to the public of late years, Pennant gives the preference to that composed by Ray, in 1667, and afterwards published in 1678; but observes, at

See Ornithology (Page 345)

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