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The bird that is at the

the flock is not very numerous. head of the angle, or the line, and thus cuts the air first, retires, when fatigued, to repose himself in the last rank, and the others take his place in their turns. There is a marked combination and intelligence in this arrangement; for it is the most favourable for each individual, and enables the entire flock to glide through the air with the least fatigue.

The duck is of another aquatic species, and has habits peculiar to itself. It differs from the goose in various particulars, sufficiently marked; among which are, a smaller body, less extended wings, a shorter neck, a bill slenderer at the base, and thicker towards the tip, and legs placed farther back on the body. In many particulars, however, these two classes agree, and indeed have a nearer affinity than usually belongs to different species in other departments. The alterations produced on them by their domestic habits, in a long series of ages, have caused the goose and the duck to differ as much from the wild sorts of their own species, as, in some of the kinds, they differ from each other. Of both, the most obvious distinction from the other feathered tribes, lies in the bill, which is broad and flat, being intended for shovelling up their food, and is sheathed with a skin which covers them all over.

There are considerable varieties among the duck species, ten different sorts of the tame kind being enumerated, and more than twenty of the wild. They may, however, be separated into two groups, the one distinguished by having the thumb or great toe bordered by a membrane, the other by the want of this appendage, while they are smaller in the head, longer in the legs, and altogether more graceful and more active.

The most celebrated of the wild species, is the eiderduck, which is found in great abundance in the north of Europe and America. In Norway, where it particularly abounds, the natives have cruelly converted one of the most interesting of instincts, into a means of gratifying

their cupidity. It is well known that the maternal solicitude of the eider-duck leads her to line her nest with the down plucked off her own breast, which is in great request on account of its beauty and warmth. When the inhabitants find one of these nests, they carefully collect and remove the down and eggs. The bird soon lays again, and covers the eggs with fresh down, which she again plucks from her breast. When she has repeated this operation, three several times, she has exhausted the supply from her body; and it is said that the male bird then comes to her assistance, and covers the eggs with down from his own breast. Half a pound weight of down may thus be collected from a single nest, during the breeding season, which is of such extraordinary elasticity, that three quarters of an ounce will fill a large hat. It is indeed at once the softest, the warmest, and the lightest substance with which we are acquainted.

It is curious to see similar instincts occurring in orders far apart from each other. The gipsey-moth and the rabbit, both in a similar manner, line their nests with down plucked from their bodies, affording remarkable instances of the analogies which are found every where meeting and surprising the inquirer into nature.

NINTH WEEK-WEDNESDAY.

BIRDS OF PREY.-THE VULTURE.

PASSING Over all the other species of the feathered family, each of which has its use in the economy of nature, I shall conclude this section of my work, by noticing two orders of birds, in some respects nearly allied to each other, yet each occupying its own distinct position, and fulfilling its own peculiar intention; I allude to the vulture and the falcon tribes, the one de

signed to devour animals already dead and undergoing the process of decay, the other, to preserve within due bounds the animated creation, by taking living creatures for its prey. Of both of these classes there are many varieties, suited to different localities and different climates. As types of the whole of these classes, I shall select one or two examples of each.

I begin with the vulture, and of this genus the American condor first presents itself as appropriate on account of its superior size. The immense mountain chain which runs down the continent of South America, is the native stronghold, where these birds dwell in security. In Peru and Chili, they are even abundant, but are seldom seen in flocks of more than three or four together. There, in the regions of perpetual snow, and of terrific storms, 15,000 feet above the level of the sea, on some isolated pinnacle, some horrid crag, the condor rears its brood, and looks down with piercing eye upon the plains beneath, yet far away, for food. Like the rest of its family, it feeds on carrion, and gorges itself to disgusting repletion, so as to become incapable of flight. In this state it is often captured; and the Indians are accustomed to expose the dead body of a cow or a horse, so as to attract the notice of these birds, as they are seen sailing in the sky. Down they sweep, and glut themselves with the luxurious banquet, when the Indians appear with their lassos,* throw them with unerring certainty, and gallop away, dragging after them the ensnared victims. These gigantic birds, which are in length between three and four feet, and from nine to ten in expanse of their wings, are by no means formidable; they are not ferocious, and their talons, not being intended to seize living prey, are too feeble to lacerate. The natives do not fear them, and are accustomed, with their children, to sleep near their resort, exposed to at

* The lasso is a cord with a slip loop, which the natives use with great dexterity on horseback, in seizing the wild cattle and horses which abound in South America.

tack, were this ever to be apprehended. Of the strength of the condor, and its tenacity of life, we have many authentic accounts. Captain Head relates an attempt of one of his Cornish miners to overcome one of these animals gorged with food, when, after a severe struggle of an hour, the man was obliged to leave his victory incomplete. Humboldt mentions the particulars of a cruel experiment made by some Indians in his presence, to show the strength of the condor's vital powers. It was hanged by the neck on a tree for several minutes, and pulled forcibly by the feet, yet, when released, it rose and walked about as if nothing had occurred to affect it. It was then shot at with a pistol within four paces, and it was not till the fourth ball struck its thigh, that it was brought to the ground; nor did it die of its wounds till after an interval of half an hour.

While sailing at ease in the air, the condor exhibits a noble spectacle of grace and majesty, which cannot be regarded without admiration. To see him with expanded wings, wheeling round the topmost summits of the Andes, or sweeping down in a series of gyrations from the upper sky, each circle contracting as the earth is neared, is represented by travellers as a sublime and imposing sight.*

The vulture is found in most parts of Europe, where it pursues its useful office of destroying dead carcases; but it is chiefly numerous in the warmer regions of the earth, where decomposition goes on rapidly, and the noxious effluvia arising from decaying animal substances might, without the interference of this bird, be both annoying and destructive. In Egypt, the vulture is of singular service. There are great flocks of them in the neighbourhood of Grand Cairo, which no person is permitted to destroy. The service which they render the inhabitants is the devouring all the carrion and filth of that great city. "They are commonly seen," says Goldsmith," in company with the wild dogs of the

Introduction to the Study of Birds," p. 24, 25.

country, tearing a carcass very deliberately together. This odd association produces no quarrels; the birds and quadrupeds seem to live amicably, and nothing but harmony subsists between them. The wonder is still the greater, as both are extremely rapacious, and both lean and bony to a very great degree, probably having no great plenty, even of the wretched food on which they subsist.”* The vulture may be justly called the scavenger among the winged tribes. For this important, though ignoble, department, it is admirably fitted by nature. Its farseeing eye, its powerful wing, its rapacious appetite, its decided preference for carrion, all mark it out as appointed to this special office by the fiat of its Maker. It fulfils its appointed duty with wonderful efficiency. Of one species, the griffon, which is widely diffused, it is said by a celebrated naturalist, that "when once it has made a lodgment on its prey, it rarely quits the banquet while a morsel of flesh remains, so that it is not uncommon to see it perched upon a putrefying corpse for several successive days." Of another, which inhabits the south of Africa, Kolben says, "I have been often a spectator of the manner in which they have anatomized a dead body; I say anatomized, for no artist in the world could have done it more cleanly. They have a wonderful method of separating the flesh from the bones, and yet leaving the skin quite entire." Of all the different kinds, it may be said in general, that nature has bestowed upon them a most voracious and almost insatiable desire to devour, under different habits suited to their respective localities.

There is in this genus a remarkable instance of the tendency in nature, already noticed, of one group of animals to pass insensibly, and by intervening forms and instincts, into another. I allude to the lämmergayer, or bearded vulture, a species nearly allied in many particulars to the eagle family, and yet possessing too many characteristics of the class we have been considering to

* Animated Nature-article Vulture.

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