the shores, or on the immense rafts of floating or stranded timber, was quite a common occurrence, the smaller on the backs of the larger, groaning and uttering their bellowing noise, like thousands of irritated bulls about to meet in fight; but all so careless of man, that, unless shot at, or positively disturbed, they remained motionless, suffering boats or canoes to pass within a few yards of them without noticing them in the least. The shores are yet trampled by them in such a manner, that their large tracks are seen as plentiful as those of sheep in a fold."

The insensibility to the presence of man evinced by the alligator on the banks of the Red River, is only one instance of a fact well known to travellers, that, in unfrequented parts of the earth, that dread of the human race, which seems instinctive to the lower animals where they mingle with man, is almost unknown. Cowper beautifully alludes to this remarkable circumstance, in the soliloquy he puts into the mouth of Robinson Cru

soe,

"I am out of humanity's reach;

I must finish my journey alone;
Never hear the sweet music of speech ;-
I start at the sound of my own!
The beasts that roam over the plain,
My form with indifference see;
They are so unacquainted with man,
Their tameness is shocking to me."

species well known as
În the central parts of

The common crocodile is the frequenting the rivers of Africa. that continent, they are said to attain the enormous size of the gavial of India. On the banks of the Nile, however, their dimensions are smaller, it being a striking fact, that where man has taken up his abode, all the animals hostile to his prosperity dwindle in size, and become diminished in ferocity, owing probably to their circumscribed bounds, and the privations to which they are subjected by the tremendous force and influence of human reason. These animals are capable of being tamed. Bruce mentions, that in Abyssinia, children may be seen riding on their backs; and it is a wellknown historical

fact, that the priests in the temple of Memphis in Egypt, in the celebration of their heathen mysteries, were in the habit of introducing tame crocodiles to the deluded multitude as objects of worship. They were fed from the hands of their conductors, and decorated with jewels and wreaths of flowers.

If we inquire into the office assigned to these horrid creatures, in the economy of the Author of Nature, we shall find it sufficiently evident, that they belong to the class intended as checks on over-production; and that the existence of some such devourer of animal life in the prolific regions which they haunt, is, upon the whole, a blessing, it is not difficult to conceive. The alternative of animals increasing in numbers, till they die of starvation as they are produced, is too distressing to be reflected on without shuddering; and yet, unless there were a system of checks, such as we find to exist in carnivorous animals, this would be the necessary result. One of the ways in which this check practically operates in the case of the alligator, may be understood by attending to the following graphic description of its operations during the dry season, given by the traveller from whom I have already quoted. "Each lake, has a spot deeper than the rest, rendered so by those animals, who work at it, and always situated at the lower end of the lake, thereby insuring themselves water as long as any will remain. This is called by the hunters the alligators' hole. You see them there lying close together. The fish, that are already dying by thousands, through the insufferable heat and stench of the water and the wounds of the different winged enemies constantly in pursuit of them, resort to the alligators' hole to receive refreshment, with a hope of finding security also, and follow down the little currents flowing through the connecting sluices. But no! for as the water recedes in the lake, they are here confined. The alligators thrash them, and devour them whenever they are hungry; while the ibis destroys all that make towards the shore."

There is a strange mixture of wisdom and folly in the human character; and the latter quality can scarcely be

exhibited in stronger operation, than when it erects the crocodile or the serpent into an object of religious worship, and causes intelligent man to bow the knee before the lowest and most malignant orders of the brutes. It exemplifies, however, this important truth, that terror takes a prominent place in the devotions of unenlightened men, and is, indeed, the groundwork of all superstitious belief. It is not till the human mind is emancipated and enlarged by Revelation, that this emotion is changed into the ennobling feeling of veneration, or gives place to the still more exalted and generous sentiments of love, gratitude, and pious confidence. I can make no exception in favor of the deist of the present day, both because his religious feelings, when they exist at all, are very often unconsciously modified and enlightened by a Christian education, and because, when that is not the case, they are apt to consist either in cold abstractions, or in a feeling of mere sentimentality.

EIGHTH WEEK-TUESDAY.

BIRDS. THEIR RELATIVE POSITION. THE BILL.

As we advance in the scale of being, new wonders strike our view, which furnish us with additional illustrations of the Divine perfections. From reptiles, the transition to birds is a great and sudden step; and we are introduced at once into a new system, in which the contrasts are not less numerous and remarkable than the analogies; but in which the intention of all the differences is obvious, and the adaptation to new functions and conditions is beautiful and complete.

When we examine the structure of birds, we find that it is more complicated than that of the animals we have already been contemplating, though inferior in this respect to the quadruped races. If we consider the mental powers with which they are endowed, it will appear that these also are intermediate between the same classes;

but, if we regard the functions they are destined to perform, we shall discover, in that which is their distinctive property, a superiority not merely over the order of quadrupeds, but over man himself.

The power of moving through the air is a very remarkable endowment, which, though it be shared with insects, may be considered, among vertebrated animals, as the peculiar property of birds. It is true, indeed, that there is scarcely any power, however peculiar, belonging to a great order of organized beings, to which we do not find approaches in species of another order, and this holds true of the power of flying. If we turn to the finny tribes, we find this quality partially possessed by the flying fish; if we regard reptiles, the same thing may be said of the flying lizard; if we look upward in the scale, we discover among quadrupeds, also, a connecting link in the bat and the vampire. These, however, are exceptions to the general rule in their respective classes, and merely serve to follow out that remarkable law of Nature, by which all orders, classes, and species seem to run into each other, so as to exhaust almost all the possible forms and functions of organized existences, and to fulfil the beneficent intention of peopling creation with interminable varieties, up to the extent of its varied resources.

As another instance of the approximation of two distinct and even distant orders to each other, I may mention, that of the humming-bird to the insect tribe. These interesting little creatures, while, like the bee, they emit that peculiar sound, in flying, from which they take their name, flutter from flower to flower, and suck nectar like the butterfly, for which, on a casual glance, they might easily be mistaken. Their tiny bill is a rival to the proboscis of the insects I have mentioned.

In a former part of this work, I adverted, at some length, to the contrivances whereby birds have been fitted to the element through which they were designed to find their way;* but there is much relating to the peculiarities of this order of beings, which has been left *Spring,'-On the Relation of the Bodies of Birds to External Na

ture.

unsaid. In the remainder of this paper, I shall confine myself to a single member, with regard to which, a few particulars shall be mentioned, which exhibit striking adaptations.

The bill of a bird is very peculiar in its conformation, and has obviously been formed with reference to the structure and functions of the animal in other respects. It was intended to cleave the air in flying, and therefore it was of importance that it should be sharp and pointed, and should project from a small head; and it was designed to act as an instrument of defence, and as a hand by which to seize its food, and, in birds of prey, to tear it. Had a mechanic been called upon to construct a mouth for such an animal, he would certainly, with all his ingenuity, have failed to invent so perfect an instrument as a bill.

But it is not merely in the general type, it is also in the variations for particular purposes, that the skill of the Creator is exhibited. Take the bill of the domestic fowl as the general basis of the contrivance, and we have an instrument simply but admirably fitted to act at once as a mouth and a hand, having nothing to do but to pick up food, to arrange its nest, and to plume its feathers, or to defend itself when attacked. If we compare it with the bills of other species of the tribe called Rasores, to which the domestic fowl belongs, we shall find numerous variations even in this simplest form. But take other orders, and the variation becomes still more marked. There are tribes which feed on worms and larvæ residing deep in the earth, and requiring to be reached by an elongated instrument. Such an instrument has been bestowed on them. The lengthened bills of the curlew, the woodcock, and the plover, are of this description. The mechanical contrivance is here simple and obvious. But more skill was required to form a forceps of horn capable of distinguishing a soft worm among the equally soft mud in which it was imbedded in the woodcock, and feeders of this kind, the end of the bill is not horny, but is provided with nerves, so that it becomes a finger to feel, as well as a hand to hold, and a mouth to eat. "It