attention from more important pursuits, to give it entirely up to what promises to repay them only with a very confined species of amusement. In my distribution of birds, therefore, I will follow Linnæus in the first sketch of his system: and then leave him to follow the most natural distinctions-in enumerating the different kinds that admit of a history or require a description.

Linnæus divides all birds into six classes-namely, birds of the "rapacious kind"-of the "pie kind" of the "poultry kind"—of the "sparrow kind"-of the "duck kind" and of the "crane kind." The first four comprehend the various kinds of land-birds-the two last those that belong to the water.

Birds of the rapacious class constitute that class of carnivorous fowl that live by rapine. He distinguishes them by their beak, which is hooked, strong, and notched at the point; by their legs, which are short and muscular, and made for the purpose of tearing; by their toes, which are strong and knobbed, and their talons, which are sharp and crooked; by the make of their body, which is muscular; and their flesh, which is impure. Nor are they less known by their food, which consists entirely of flesh; their stomach, which is membraneous; and their manners, which are fierce and cruel.

Birds of the pie kind have the bill differing from the former; as in those it resembles a hook, destined for tearing to pieces, in these it resembles a wedge, fitted for the purpose of cleaving. Their legs are formed short and strong, for walking; their body is slender and impure, and their food miscellaneous. They nestle in trees; and the male feeds the female during the time of incubation.

Birds of the poultry kind have the bill a little convex, for the purpose of gathering their food. The upper chap hangs over the lower, their bodies are fat and muscular, and their flesh white and pure. They live upon grain, which is moistened in the crop. They make their nest on the ground without art; they lay many eggs, and use promiscuous venery.

Birds of the sparrow kind comprehend all that beautiful and vocal class that adorn our fields and groves, and gratify every sense in its turn. Their bills may be compared to a forceps that catches hold; their legs are formed for hopping along; their bodies are tender-pure in such as feed upon grain, impure in such as live upon insects. They live chiefly in trees; their nests are artificially made, and their amours are observed with connubial fidelity.

Birds of the duck kind use their bill as a kind of strainer to their food; it is smooth, covered with skin, and nervous at the point. Their legs are short, and their feet formed for swimming, the toes being webbed together. Their body is fat, inclined to rancidity. They live in waters, and chiefly build their nests upon land.

With respect to the order of birds that belong to the waters, those of the crane kind have the bill formed for the purposes of searching and examining the bottom of pools; their legs are long, and formed for wading; their toes are not webbed; their thighs are half naked; their body is slender, and covered with a very thin skin; their tail is short, and their flesh savoury. They live in lakes upon animals, and they chiefly build their nests upon the ground.

Such is the division of Linnæus with respect to this class of animals; and at first sight it appears natural and comprehensive. But we must not be deceived by appearances: the student-who should imagine he was making a progress in the history of Nature while he was only thus making arbitrary distributions-would be very much mistaken. Should he come to enter deeper into this naturalist's plan, he would find birds the most unlike in nature thrown together into the same class; and find animals joined that entirely differ in climate, in habitudes, in manners, in shape, colouring, and size.

In such a distribution, for instance, he would find the humming-bird and the raven, the rail and the ostrich, joined in the same family. If, when he asked what sort of a creature was the humming-bird, he were told that it was in the same class with the carrion-crow, would he not think himself imposed upon? In such a case, the only way to form any idea of the animal whose history he desires to know is to see it; and that curiosity very few have an opportunity of gratifying. The number of birds is so great, that it might exhaust the patience not only of the writer but the reader to examine them all: in the present confined undertaking it would cer tainly be impossible. I will therefore now attach myself to a more natural method; and, still keeping the general division of Linnæus before me, enter into some description of the most noted or the most worth knowing. Under one or other class, as I shall treat them, the reader will probably find all the species and all the varieties that demand his curiosity. When the leader of any tribe is described, and its history known, it will give a very tolerable idea of all the species contained under it. It is true, the reader will not thus have his knowledge ranged under such precise distinctions; nor can he be able to say with such fluency that the rail is of the ostrich class: but what is much more material, he will have a tolerable history of the bird he desires to know, or at least of that which most resembles it in nature.

However, it may be proper to apprise the reader that he will not here find his curiosity satisfied as in the former volumes, where we often took Mr. Buffon for our guide. Those who have hitherto written the natural history of birds have in general been contented with telling their names or describing their toes or their plu mage. It must often, therefore, happen, that instead of giving the history of a bird we must be content to entertain the reader with merely its description. I will therefore divide the following history of birds, with Linnæus, into six parts; in the first of which I will give such as Brisson has ranged among the rapacious birds; next those of the pie kind; and thus go on through the succeeding classes till I finish with those of the duck kind. But before I enter upon a systematic detail, I will beg leave to give the history of three or four birds that do not well range in any system. These, from their great size, are sufficiently distinguishable from the rest, and, from their incapacity of flying, lead a life a good deal differing from the rest of the feathered creation, The birds I mean are the ostrich, the cassowary, the emu, the dodo, and the solitaire.

In beginning with the feathered tribe, the first animal that offers seems to unite the class of quadrupeds and of birds in itself. While it has the general outline and properties of a bird, yet it retains many of the marks of the quadruped. In appearance the ostrich resembles the camel, and is almost as tall; it is covered with a plumage that almost resembles hair much more nearly than feathers, and its internal parts bear as near a similitude to those of the quadruped as of the bird creation. It may be considered, therefore, as an animal made to fill up that chasm in Nature which separates one class of beings from another.

The ostrich is the largest of all birds. Travellers affirm that they are seen as tall as a man on horseback; and even some of those that have been brought into England were above seven feet high. The head and bill somewhat resemble those of a duck; and the neck may be likened to that of a swan, but that it is much

longer; the legs and thighs resemble those of a hen; though the whole appearance bears a strong resemblance to that of a camel But to be more particular, it is usually seven feet high from the top of the head to the ground, but from the back it is only four; so that the head and neck are above three feet long. From the top of the head to the rump, when the neck is stretched out in a right line, it is six feet long, and the tail is about a foot more. One of the wings, without the feathers, is a foot and a half; and being stretched out, with the feathers, is three feet.

The plumage is much alike in all—that is, generally black and white; though some of them are said to be grey. The greatest feathers are at the extremities of the wings and tail, and the largest are generally white. The next row is black and white; and of the small feathers on the back and belly, some are white and others black. There are no feathers on the sides, nor yet on the thighs nor under the wings. The lower part of the neck, about half way, is covered with smaller feathers than those on the belly and back; and those, like the former, also are of different colours.

All these feathers are of the same kind, and peculiar to the ostrich; for other birds have several sorts, some of which are soft and downy, and others hard and strong. Ostrich feathers are almost all as soft as down, being utterly unfit to serve the animal for flying, and still less adapted to be a proper defence against external injury. The feathers of other birds have the webs broader on one side than the other, but those of the ostrich have their shaft exactly in the middle. The upper part of the head and neck are covered with a very fine, clear, white hair, that shines like the bristles of a hog; and in some places there are small tufts of it, consisting of about twelve hairs, which grow from a single shaft about the thickness of a pin.

At the end of each wing there is a kind of spur, almost like the quill of a porcupine. It is an inch long, being hollow and of a horny substance. There are two of these on each wing, the largest of which is at the extremity of the bone of the wing, and the other a foot lower. The neck seems to be more slender in proportion to that of other birds, from its not being furnished with feathers. The skin in this part is of a livid fleshcolour, which some improperly would have to be blue. The bill is short and pointed, and two inches and a half at the beginning. The external form of the eye is like that of a man, the upper eye-lid being adorned with eye-lashes which are longer than those on the lid below. The tongue is small, very short, and composed of cartilages, ligaments, and membranes, intermixed with fleshy fibres. In some it is about an inch long, and very thick at the bottom. In others it is but half an inch, being a little forked at the end.

The thighs are very fleshy and large, being covered with a white skin inclining to redness, and wrinkled in the manner of a net, whose meshes will admit the end of a finger. Some have very small feathers here and there on the thighs; and others again have neither feathers nor wrinkles. What are called the legs of birds in this are covered before with large scales. The end of the foot is cloven, and has two very large toes, which, like the leg, are covered with scales. These toes are of unequal sizes. The largest, which is on the inside, is seven inches long, including the claw, which is near three fourths of an inch in length, and almost as broad. The other toe is but four inches long, and is without a claw.

The internal parts of this animal are formed with no less surprising peculiarity. At the top of the breast, under the skin, the fat is two inches thick; and on the fore-part of the belly it is as hard as suet, and about two inches and a half thick in some places. It has two distinct stomachs. The first, which is lowermost, in its natural situation somewhat resembles the crop in other

birds; but it is considerably larger than the other sto mach, and is furnished with strong muscular fibres, as well circular as longitudinal. The second stomach, or gizzard, has outwardly the shape of the stomach of a man; and upon opening is always found filled with a variety of discordant substances-hay, grass, barley, beans, bones, and stones, some of which exceed in size a pullet's egg. The kidneys are eight inches long and two broad, and differ from those of other birds in not being divided into lobes. The heart and lungs are separated by a midriff, as in quadrupeds, and the parts of generation also bear a very strong resemblance and analogy.

Such is the structure of this animal forming the shade that unites birds and quadrupeds; and from this structure its habits and manners are entirely peculiar. It is a native only of the torrid regions of Africa, and has long been celebrated by those who have had occasion to mention the animals of that region. Its flesh is proscribed in Scripture as unfit to be eaten; and most of the ancient writers describe it as well known in their times. Like the race of the elephant, it is transmitted down without mixture; and has never been known to breed out of that country which first produced it. It seems formed to live among the sandy and burning deserts of the torrid zone; and as in some measure it owes its birth to their genial influence, so it seldom migrates into tracts more mild or more fertile. As that is the peculiar country of the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the camel, so it may readily be supposed capable of affording a retreat to the ostrich. They inhabit from preference the most solitary and horrid deserts, where there are few vegetables to clothe the surface of the earth, and where the rain never comes to refresh it. The Arabians assert that the ostrich never drinks; and the place of its habitation seems to confirm the assertion. In these formidable regions ostriches are seen in large flocks, which to the distant spectator appear like a regiment of cavalry, and have often alarmed a whole caravan There is no desert, how barren soever, but what is capable of supplying these animals with provision; they eat almost everything; and these barren tracts are thus doubly grateful, as they afford both food and security. The ostrich is of all other animals the most voracious. It will devour leather, glass, hair, iron, stones, or anything that is given. Nor are its powers of digestion less in such things as are digestible. Those substances which the coats of the stomach cannot soften pass whole; so that glass, stones, or iron are excluded in the form in which they were devoured. All metals, indeed, which are swallowed by any animal lose a part of their weight, and often the extremities of their figure, from the action of the juices of the stomach upon their surface. A quarter-pistole which was swallowed by a duck lost seven grains of its weight in the gizzard before it was voided; and it is probable that a still greater diminution of weight would happen in the stomach of an ostrich; considered in this light, therefore, this animal may be said to digest iron; but such substances seldom remain long enough in the stomach of any animal to undergo so tedious a dissolution. However this be, the ostrich swallows almost everything presented to it. Whether this be from the necessity which smaller birds are under of picking up gravel to keep the coats of their stomach asunder, or whether it be from a want of distinguishing by the taste what substances are fit and what incapable of digestion, certain it is, that in the ostrich dissected by Ranby there appeared such a quantity of heterogeneous substances that it was wonderful how any animal could digest such an overcharge of nourishment. Valisnieri also found the first stomach filled with a quantity of incongruous substances-grass, nuts, cords, stones, glass, brass, copper, iron, tin, lead, and wood; a piece of stone was found among the rest that weighed more than a

people were obliged to stop it by barring up the way. How far this strength and swiftness may be useful to mankind, even in a polished state, is a matter that perhaps deserves inquiry.

The parts of this animal are said to be convertible to many salutary purposes in medicine. The fat is said to be emollient and relaxing; that while it relaxes the tendons it fortifies the nervous system; and being applied to the region of the loins it abates the pain of the stone in the kidney. The shell of the egg powdered, and given in proper quantities, is said to be useful in promoting urine and dissolving the stone in the bladder. The substance of the egg itself is thought to be peculiarly nourishing: however, Galen, in mentioning this, asserts that the eggs of hens and pheasants are good to be eaten-those of geese and ostriches are the worst of all.

CHAP. V.

THE EMU.

Of this bird, which many call the "American ostrich," but little is certainly known. It is an inhabitant of the new continent; and the travellers who have mentioned it seem to have been more solicitous in proving its affinity to the ostrich than in describing those peculiarities which distinguish it from all others of the feathered creation.

It is chiefly found in Guiana, along the banks of the Oroonoko, in the inland provinces of Brazil and Chili, and the vast forests that border on the mouth of the river Plata. Many other parts of South America were known to have them; but as men multiplied, these large and timorous birds either fell beneath their superior power or fled from their vicinity.

The emu, though not so large as the ostrich, is only second to it in magnitude. It is by much the largest bird in the new continent, and is generally found to be six feet high, measuring from its head to the ground. Its legs are three feet long, and its thigh is near as thick as that of a man. The toes differ from those of the ostrich, as there are three in the American bird and but two in the former. Its neck is long, its head small, and the bill flatted like that of the ostrich; but in all other respects it more resembles a cassowary-a large bird to be described hereafter. The form of the body appears round; the wings are short, and entirely unfitted for flying; and it entirely wants a tail. It is covered from the back and rump with long feathers, which fall backward and cover the anus; these feathers are grey upon the back and white upon the belly. It goes very swiftly, and seems assisted in its motion by a kind of tubercle behind, like a heel, upon which, on plain ground, it treads very securely in its course it uses a very odd kind of action, lifting up one wing, which it keeps elevated for a time, till, letting it drop, it lifts up the other. What the bird's intention may be in thus keeping only one wing up is not easy to discover; whether it makes use of this as a sail to catch the wind, or whether as a rudder to turn its course in order to avoid the arrows of the Indians, yet remains to be ascertained; however this be, the emu runs with such swiftness that the fleetest dogs are thrown out in the pursuit. One of them, finding itself surrounded by the hunters, darted among the dogs with such fury that they made way to avoid its rage; and it escaped by its amazing velocity in safety to the mountains.

As this bird is but little known, so travellers have given a loose to their imaginations in describing some of its actions, which they were conscious could not be easily contradicted. This animal, says Nierenberg, is very peculiar in the hatching of its young. The male

compels twenty or thirty of the females to lay their eggs in one nest; he then, when they have done laying, chases them away, and places himself upon the eggs; however, he takes a singular precaution of laying two of the number aside, which he does not sit upon. When the young ones come forth these two eggs are addled; which the male having foreseen, breaks one and then the other, upon which multitudes of flies are found to settle; and these supply the young brood with a sufficiency of provision till they are able to shift for themselves.

On the other hand, Wafer asserts that he has seen great quantities of this animal's eggs on the desert shores north of the river Plata, where they were buried in the sand in order to be hatched by the heat of the climate. Both this as well as the preceding account may be doubted; and it is more probable that it was the crocodile's eggs which Wafer had seen, which are undoubtedly hatched in that manner.

When the young ones are hatched they are familiar, and follow the first person they meet. I have been followed myself, says Wafer, by many of these young ostriches, which at first are extremely harmless and simple, but as they grow older they become more cunning and distrustful, and run so swift that a grey-hound can scarcely overtake them. Their flesh in general is good to be eaten, especially if they be young. It would be no difficult matter to rear up flocks of these animals tame, particularly as they are naturally so familiar; and they might be found to answer domestic purposes like the hen or the turkey. Their maintenance could not be expensive if, as Narborough says, they live entirely upon grass.

The cassowary is a bird which was first brought into Europe by the Dutch from Java, in the East Indies, in which part of the world it is only to be found. Next to the preceding, it is the largest and heaviest of the feathered species.

The cassowary, though not so large as the former, yet appears more bulky to the eye-its body being nearly equal, and its neck and legs much thicker and stronger in proportion; this conformation gives it an air of strength and force, which the fierceness and singularity of its countenance conspire to render formidable. It is five feet and a half long from the point of the bill to the extremity of the claws; the legs are two feet and a half high from the body to the end of the claws; the head and neck together are a foot and a half; and the largest toe, including the claw, is five inches long. The claw alone of the least toe is three inches and a half in length; the wing is so small that it does not appear, it being hid under the feathers of the back. In other birds a part of the feathers serve for flight, and are different from those that serve for merely covering; but in the cassowary all the feathers are of the same kind, and outwardly of the same colour. They are generally double, having two long shafts, which grow out of a short one which is fixed in the skin. Those that are double are always of an unequal length; for some are fourteen inches long, particularly on the rump, while others are not above three. The beards that adorn the stem or shaft are, from about half way to the end, very long, and as thick as a horse's hair, without being subdivided into fibres. The stem or shaft is flat, shining, black, and knotted below, and from each knot there proceeds a beard; the beard at the end of the large feathers are also perfectly black, and towards the root of a grey tawny colour-shorter, more soft, and throw

ing out fine fibres like down; so that nothing appears except the ends, which are hard and black, because the other part composed of down is quite covered. There are feathers on the head and neck; but they are so short and thinly sown that the bird's skin appears naked, except towards the hinder part of the head, where they are a little longer. The feathers which adorn the rump are extremely thick, but do not differ in other respects from the rest, except their being longer. The wings, when they are deprived of their feathers, are but three inches long; and the feathers are like those on other parts of the body. The end of the wings are adorned with five prickles, of different lengths and thickness, which bend like a bow; these are hollow from the roots to the very points, having only that slight substance within which all quills are known to have. The longest of these prickles is eleven inches; and it is a quarter of an inch in diameter at the root, being thicker there than towards the extremity; the point seems as though it were broken off.

The part, however, which most distinguishes this animal is the head; this, though small, like that of an ostrich, does not fail to inspire some degree of terror. It is bare of feathers, and is in a manner armed with a helmet of a horny substance, that covers it from the root of the bill to near half the head backwards. This helmet is black before and yellow behind. Its substance is very hard, being formed by the elevation of the bone of the skull; and it consists of several plates, one over another, like the horn of an ox. Some have supposed that this was shed every year with the feathers; but the most probable opinion is that it only exfoliates slowly like the beak. To the peculiar oddity of this natural armour may be added the colour of the eye in this animal, which is a bright yellow, and the globe being about an inch and a half in diameter, give it an air equally fierce and extraordinary. At the bottom of the upper eyelid there is a row of small hairs, over which there is another row of black hair, which looks pretty much like an eyebrow. The lower eyelid, which is the largest of the two, is also furnished with plenty of black hair. The hole of the ear is very large and open, being only covered with small black feathers. The sides of the head about the eye and ear, being destitute of any covering, are blue, except the middle of the lower eyelid, which is white. The part of the bill which answers to the upper jaw in other animals is very hard at the edges above, and the extremity of it is like that of a turkey cock. The end of the lower mandible is slightly notched, and the whole is of a greyish brown, except a green spot on each side. As the beak admits a very wide opening, this contributes not a little to the bird's menacing appearance. The neck is of a violet colour, inclining to that of slate; and it is red behind in several places, but chiefly in the middle. About the middle of the neck before, at the rise of the large feathers, there are two processes formed by the skin, which resemble somewhat the gills of a cock, but that they are blue as well as red. The skin which covers the fore-part of the breast, on which this bird leans and rests, is hard, callous, and without feathers. The thighs and legs are covered with feathers, and are extremely thick, strong, straight, and covered with scales of several shapes; but the legs are thicker a little above the foot than in any other place. The toes are likewise covered with scales, and are but three in number; for that which should be behind is wanting. The claws are of a hard, solid substance, black without and white within.

The internal parts are equally remarkable. The cassowary unites with the double stomach of animals that live upon vegetables the short intestines of those that live upon flesh. The intestines of the cassowary are thirteen times shorter than those of the ostrich. The heart is very small, being but an inch and a half long, and an inch broad at the base. Upon the whole, it has

the head of a warrior, the eye of a lion, the defence of a porcupine, and the swiftness of a courser.

Thus formed for a life of hostility, for terrifying others, and for its own defence, it might be expected that the cassowary was one of the most fierce and terrible animals of the creation. But nothing is so opposite to its natural character-nothing so different from the life it is contented to lead. It never attacks others; and instead of using its bill when attacked, it rather makes use of its legs, and kicks like a horse, or runs against its pursuer, beats him down, and treads him to the ground. The manner of going of this animal is not less extraor dinary than its appearance. Instead of going directly forward, it seems to kick up behind with one leg, and then making a bound onward on the other, it goes with such prodigious velocity that the swiftest racer would be left far behind.

The same degree of voraciousness which we perceived in the ostrich obtains as strongly here. The cassowary swallows everything that comes within the capacity of its gullet. The Dutch assert that it can devour not only glass, iron, and stones, but even live and burning coals, without testifying the smallest fear or feeling the least injury. It is said that the passage of the food through its gullet is performed so speedily, that even the very eggs which it has swallowed whole pass through it unbroken in the same form they went down. In fact, the alimentary canal of this animal, as was observed above, is extremely short; and it may happen that many kinds of food are indigestible in its stomach, as wheat and currants are to man, when swallowed whole.

The cassowary's eggs are of a grey ash colour, inclining to green. They are not so large nor so round as those of the ostrich. They are marked with a number of little tubercles of a deep green, and the shell is not very thick. The largest of these is found to be fifteen inches round one way, and about twelve the other.

The southern part of the most eastern Indies seems to be the natural climate of the cassowary. His domain, if we may so call it, begins where that of the ostrich terminates. The latter has never been found beyond the Ganges; while the cassowary is never seen nearer than the islands of Banda, Sumatra, Java, the Molucco Islands, and the corresponding parts of the continent. Yet even here this animal seems not to have multiplied in any considerable degree, as we find one of the kings of Java making a present of one of these birds to the captain of a Dutch ship, considering it as a very great rarity. The ostrich, which has dwelt in the desert and unpeopled regions of Africa, is still numerous, and the unrivalled tenant of its inhospitable climate. But the cassowary, which is the inhabitant of a more peopled and polished region, is growing scarcer every day. It is thus in proportion as man multiplies all the savage and noxious animals fly before him; at his approach they quit their ancient habitations, how adapted soever they may be to their natures, and seek a more peaceable though barren retreat, where they willingly exchange plenty for freedom, and encounter all the dangers of famine to avoid the oppressions of an unrelenting destroyer.

CHAP. VII.

THE DODO.

Mankind has generally made swiftness the attribute of birds; but the dodo has no title to this distinction. Instead of exciting the idea of swiftness by its appearance, it seems to strike the imagination as a thing the most unwieldy and inactive in all Nature. Its body is massive, almost round, and covered with feathers; it