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race, for instance, the same impulse, or law of Nature, takes place among the partridge tribes, the swallows, the linnets, and, in general, all the small birds. The assiduity, attention, mutual affection, laborious vigilance, and stedfast fidelity of pairing animals, are truly admirable, and, to ingenious minds, afford the most exemplary admonitions to virtue and conjugal attachment. Indeed, in general, it is to be remarked, that all those species of animals, whose offspring require, for some time, the industry and support of both parents, are endowed with the instinct of selection, or of pairing. With regard to the feathered tribes, pairing is almost universal. A distinction, however, as to the duration and circumstances of their pairing, is to be observed. The young of all the small birds, as well as of most of the larger kinds, continue for some weeks in a weak and helpless condition. The mother is not, like quadrupeds, provided with organs fitted to se crete milk; of course, she is unable to nourish them out of her own body. She is therefore obliged to go abroad in quest of food for them. But the progeny are so numerous, that all her industry, if not assisted by the father, would be ineffectual for their support and protection. In all birds whose young are in this condition, the males and females not only pair, but each of them is endowed with the strongest parental affection. Both are equally anxious and industrious in procuring food for their mutual offspring. This parental care and attachment uniformly continue till the young are fledged, and have acquired sufficient strength to provide for themselves. Eagles, and some other birds of prey, continue faithfully in pairs for years, and perhaps during life. These facts afford a strong argument in favour of marriage among mankind. No animal remains so long in the infant and helpless state as the children of men; and no mother can, but with great diffi

culty, procure nourishment for a numerous family. Here, as in the feathered tribes, the assistance of the father becomes indispensable. On this subject, a curious instinct merits attention. The male of most birds not only selects a female, but, with great assiduity, brings food to her when sitting on her eggs, and often relieves her by sitting on them himself.

I cannot forbear, in this place, to illustrate my subject, by some beautiful passages from Thomson, that accurate observer, and enthusiastic admirer, of rural nature:

The glossy kind
Try every winning way inventive love
Can dictate, and in courtship to their mates
Pour forth their little souls.

Connubial leagues agreed, to the deep woods
They haste away, all as their fancy leads,
Pleasure, or food, or secret safety prompts;
That Nature's great command may be obeyed,
Nor all the sweet sensations they perceive
Indulged in vain.

The patient dam assiduous sits,

Not to be tempted from her tender task,
Or by sharp hunger, or by smooth delight,

Though the whole loosened Spring around her blows.

Her sympathizing lover takes his stand

High on th' opponent bank, and ceaseless sings
The tedious time away; or else supplies
Her place a moment, while she sudden flits
To pick the scanty meal. Th' appointed time
With pious toil fulfilled, the callow young,
Warmed and expanded into perfect life,
Their brittle bondage break, and come to light,
A helpless family, demanding food

With constant clamour: O what passions then,
What melting sentiments of kindly care,
On the new parents seize! Away they fly
Affectionate, and undesiring bear

The most delicious morsel to their young;
Which equally distributed, again
The search begins.

Nor toil alone they scorn: exalting love,
By the great Father of the Spring inspired,
Gives instant courage to the fearful race,
And to the simple art. With stealthy wing,
Should some rude foot their woody haunts molest,
Amid a neighbouring bush they silent drop,
And whirring thence, as if alarmed, deceive
Th' unfeeling schoolboy. Hence, around the head
Of wandering swain, the white-winged plover wheels
Her sounding flight, and then directly on
In long excursion skims the level lawn,

To tempt him from her nest. The wild-duck, hence,
O'er the rough moss, and o'er the trackless waste
The heath-hen flutters, pious fraud ! to lead
The hot pursuing spaniel far astray.

But now the feathered youth their former bounds,
Ardent, disdain; and, weighing oft their wings,
Demand the free possession of the sky:
This one glad office more, and then dissolves
Parental love at once, now needless grown.
Unlavish Wisdom never works in vain.

'Tis on some evening, sunny, grateful, mild,
When nought but balm is breathing through the woods,
With yellow lustre bright, that the new tribes

Visit the spacious heavens, and look abroad

On nature's common, far as they can see,
Or wing, their range and pasture. O'er the boughs
Dancing about, still at the giddy verge
Their resolution fails; their pinions still,
In loose libration stretched, to trust the void
Trembling refuse: till down before them fly
The parent-guides, and chide, exhort, command,
Or push them off. The surging air receives
Its plumy burden; and their self-taught wings
Winnow the waving element. On ground
Alighted, bolder up again they lead,
Farther and farther on, the lengthening flight;
Till, vanished every fear, and every power
Roused into life and action, light in air
Th' acquitted parents see their soaring race,
And once rejoicing never know them more.

The careful hen

Calls all her chirping family around,
Fed and defended by the fearless cock;

Whose breast with ardour flames, as on he walks,
Graceful, and crows defiance. In the pond,
The finely chequered duck, before her train,
Rows garrulcus. The stately-sailing swan
Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale;
And, arching proud his neck, with oary
Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier isle,
Protective of his young The turkey nigh,
Loud-threatening reddens, while the peacock spreads
His ever coloured glory to the sun,

And swims in radiant majesty along.

feet

O'er the whole homely scene, the cooing dove
Flies thick in amorous chase, and wanton rolls
The glancing eye, and turns the changeful neck.

It would exceed the limits of this paper, if I were to extend my observations to quadrupeds, among whom pairing does not universally take place. There is one circumstance, however, which I cannot pass unnoticed, as it displays most conspicuously the over-ruling care of Providence; namely, that in the brute creation, with some few exceptions, the seasons of love are limited to particular times of the year. These seasons, though various, are admirably adapted to the nature and economy of the different species. They are so contrived, as well as the time of gestation, that the offspring, when brought forth, are amply supplied with the particular species of food upon which they principally live. To instance in the feathered race, the young of pairing birds are produced in the spring, when the weather begins to be comfortably warm, and their natural food abounds. In a word, the bringing forth, or hatching, of all animals, not excluding the insect tribes, uniformly takes place at those seasons of the year when the nature of the weather, and the food peculiar to the species, are best adapted to the constitution of their offspring. Caterpillars of every kind are never hatched till the various plants on which they feed, though they grow in different months, have put forth their leaves.

No. LXXII.

ON THE ARTIFICES OF VARIOUS KINDS OF ANIMALS.

One portion of informing fire was given
To brutes, th' inferior family of Heaven.

For He, Supreme Existence, ever neir,
Informs them.

DRYDEN.

DYER.

HAVING treated lately on the principle of association, and the instinct of affection, as they pervade the brute creation, I shall close my observations on animals in general, with some instances of the wonderful artifices which various kinds of them employ, either for self-preservation, or the protection of their young.

Many of these arts are purely instinctive, and others are acquired by experience and imitation. The love of life, the desire of multiplying and continuing the species, and that strong attachment which every animal has to its offspring, are the sources from which we must trace all the movements, dexterity, and sagacity of animals. The principle of self-preservation is strongly impressed upon the minds of all animated beings. It gives rise to innumerable arts of attack and defence, and not unfrequently to surprising exertions of sagacity and genius.

When cattle are attacked by a bear, or other rapacious animal, they instantly form a phalanx for mutual defence. In the same circumstances, horses rank up in lines, and beat off the enemy with their heels. Bishop Pontoppidon relates, that the small

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