that it forms the link which unites these two extremes of a long chain of gradations, and either party may claim it

with almost equal propriety. Although an ocean-bird, its province is not the water, but the air; it neither swims nor dives, nor even rests, like the gull, on the billows. Its feet are indeed webbed, but the webs are very partial; the tarsi (or legs, as they are generally called) scarcely half an inch in length, the whole limb very short, and covered to the feet with long loose feathers; the tail is long and forked, the wings of extraordinary spread, and the general plumage deficient in that close and downy texture which always characterizes a bird whose habitat is the surface of the deep. Its conformation, on the other hand, as manifestly declares it to be aerial; aerial, not with the land below, on which it may repose and rest when weary, but aerial with the ocean below, on which it never rests, and which, affording it its food, does all that is required.

The Frigate-bird is to be met with principally between the tropics, hundreds of leagues from land, to which, except for the purpose of hatching its young, it never resorts. It is ever on the wing, often soaring so high as to be scarcely visible, at other times skimming at a moderate distance from the water, and darting with the rapidity of an arrow upon any unfortunate fish which approaches the surface, so as to be within the reach of its

beak. The flying-fish are its special prey; driven by the dolphin out of the water to trust to their fan-like wings, they are pounced upon by this voracious bird, who, not content to limit himself to the procuring of food by his own labours, attacks gulls and other sea-birds that have just made a successful capture, and obliges them to give up their booty. In his ferocious disposition and mode of taking his prey on the wing, as well as in the curved or hook-like termination of his beak, he resembles the falcon tribe, nor less so in the powers of maintaining a rapid and lengthened flight, in which he excels every other bird. We have said that he is met with hundreds of leagues from land; in fact, there is but one purpose, that of hatching and rearing the young, for which this bird ever resorts there; under ordinary circumstances, it continues ever on the wing over the ocean, reposing on outspread pinions in the higher regions of the air, where, without any effort, it can remain suspended. The strangeness of this fact will be removed, when we inform our readers of the mechanical contrivance with which the bird is furnished. Beneath the throat is situated a large pouch, capable of being distended with air from the lungs, with which, as well as with the hollow bones of the wings, it immediately communicates. The bones of the wings themselves, besides being hollow, are extremely long and light; thus this pouch or sack beneath the throat, and these tubes, are filled with rarefied air, forming an apparatus analogous to a balloon, which requires little else but the wings themselves to be spread, to be enabled by its buoyancy to sustain the weight of the body in the atmosphere. In the female, the pouch is not near so large; in other respects she resembles the male, except that the plumage is more obscure, and the neck and under parts of a dirty white.

The length of the male, including the long forked tail, is three feet; expanse of wing, eight; the air pouch, red; the general plumage dark umbre brown. Its motions in the air are very graceful and sweeping. It is said to build in rocks or tall trees; but of its nidification little is correctly ascertained.

Here we close this survey of the feathered tribes. Our aim has been to sketch a brief, but, we trust, not valueless outline of ornithology, introductory to a more elaborate study of that delightful branch of natural history. In doing this, the attention of the reader has been directed to a consideration of natural groups or families; that is, associations of species, allied to each other by certain definite characteristics; and these groups, thus established, we have endeavoured to illustrate by the most apt and striking examples. Not that any pretension has been made to follow out these groups through all their ramifications, trace out all their alliances, or anatomize all their minutiæ. It is true, that upon these and other points of equal interest, much more might have been said, but in so doing all moderate bounds must have been exceeded; while those for whom this introductory work is designed would have been confused and perplexed. It is enough to have communicated the rudiments of the science of Ornithology to the intelligent inquirer, and we shall be satisfied if a solid foundation has been laid for future study, and an impulse given to pursue it.

With regard to the system of arrangement pursued in the present work, all the peculiar theories of any naturalists, however eminent, have been expressly avoided, except in as far as they subserve the present design; little solicitude is here shown about particular views, and points of minor importance, so that the reader might but obtain a glimpse, however superficial, of those laws of order and harmony which are "part and parcel" of nature. Let it not be supposed that systems are to be undervalued; they are indispensable to our efficient study of any portion of the works of creation; for so various and so multiform are these works, that without arrangement, by which to follow nature, and unthread the maze, we should be lost amidst a wilderness of causes and effects, laws and modes; we should be led into a thousand errors; we should misdirect our attention, and, as it were, weaken our powers by a diffuse and indeterminate application of them; we should naturally associate together things which have no relationship, and disjoin the closest alliances. Hence the

value of a system, hence its necessity to finite minds; yet, after all, it is the means, and not the end,—the key to knowledge, and not knowledge itself.

Connected with a display of the harmonies of nature, there has also been another and most important object in view in our present labours; namely, to lead the reader through the glorious and beautiful works of creation, pregnant with proofs of design, and of the adaptation of effects and causes, carried out to a minuteness which makes us feel how little we truly know, up to the God of all power and might, whose dominion is for ever and ever. But that God of all power and might, by whom all things were made, cannot be contemplated by the christian (through whatever sources the mind may be directed to Him) only as his Creator; he will feel that God is his Redeemer; he will call to mind his state of condemnation under the law, which he has transgressed, and rejoice in a covenant ordered in all things and sure, a covenant founded in oaths and promises and blood, by which he may find pardon and acceptance through the sufferings and merits of that Messiah who died that we might live, and " rose again for our justification."

Thus, to the christian, will Nature be the handmaid of Religion, and thus will all our studies of the Divine works lead us to Him, who is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End; who "spake, and it was done;" who commanded, and it stood fast."

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