and they are, in every respect, made for making their way through the air with the least resistance. Many tribes migrate, at certain seasons, from one country to another, and no less than nineteen tribes arrive in England in the spring, and leave us in the autumn; and ten other arrive in autumn and leave us in the spring.

It wins my admiration To view the structure of that little work-A bird's nest. Mark it well within, without that wrought; no knife to cut ș no bodkin to insert;

No tool had he

No nail to fix

No glue to join his little beak was all -
And yet how neatly finished! What nice band,
With every implement and means of art,
And twenty years' apprenticeship to boot,
Cou'd make me such another? Fondly, then,
We boast of excellence, whose noblest skill
Instinctive genius foils.

UURDIS,

487. There are six orders of birds: 1. The Accipitres, or rapacious kinds; as condors, vultures, eagles, and hawks.

2. Pice, or the pye-kind; as parrots, ravens crows, &c.

3. Censores, or the duck kind; as the swan, goose, &c.

4. Gralle, or the crane kind; as storks, flamingoes, &c.

5. Galline, or the poultry kind; as peacocks, turkeys, partridges, &c.

And 6. Passeres, or the sparrow kind; as pigeons, larks, blackbirds, nightingales, swal lows, &c.

But who the various nations can declare
That plough with busy wing the peopled nir?

These, cleave the crumbling bark for insect-food
Those, dip the crooked beak in kindred, blood
Some, haunt the rushy moor, the lonely woods
Some, bathe their silver plumage in the floods
Some, fly to man, his household-gods implore,.
And gather round his hospitable door,

Wait the known call, and find protection there
From all the lesser tyrants of the air.
The tawny eagle seats his callow brood

High on the cliff, and feasts his young with blood.

BARBAULD.

488. The third class is constituted of Amphibia. These have a naked or scaly body, pointed teeth, and no tins.

There are four orders:

1. Reptiles; as the crocodile, tortoise, lizard, frog, &c.

2. Serpents; as the rattle-snake, boa constrictor,viper, &c.; some of which are harmless. 3. Meantes; as the siren.

4. Nantes; as torpedoes, sharks, &c.

489. The fourth class of animated beings, are fishes; the inhabitants of a different element from man, but not less wonderful in their organization, nor less various in their forms and habits than the other classes.

Many hundred species of fishes, which reside in the unfathomable depths of the ocean, are doubtless unknown to man; and he knows little of the real habits and economy even of those which are the most familiar to him.

Obs. The eye can reach but a very short way into the depths of the sea; and that only when its surface is glassy and serene. In many seas, it perceives nothing But a bright sandy plain at bottom, extending for seve ral bundred miles, without an intervening object.

But, in others, particularly in the Red Sen, it is very different the whole body of this extensive bed of water is, literally speaking, a forest of submarine plants, and corals formed by insects for their habitation, sometimes branching out to a great extent, Here are seen the madrepores, the sponges, mosses, sea-mushrooms, and other marine productions, covering every part of the bottom--The bed of many parts of the sea near Anterica presents a very different, though a very beautiful appearance, being covered with vegetables, which makes it Jook as green as a meadow; and beneath are seen thousands of turtles, and other sea-animals, feeding.

2.--" Were it not (says Hawkins) for the moving of the sea, by the force of winds, tides, and currents, it would corrupt into life! An experiment of this I saw, when lying with a fleet about the islands of Azores, almost six months; the greater part of which time we were becalmed. Upon which, all the sea became so replenished with various sorts of jellies, and forms of sen. pents, adders, and snakes, as seemed wonderful; some green, some black, some yellow, some white, some divers colours, and many of thein bad life; and some there were a yard and a half, and two yards louri which, had I not seen, I could hardly have believed. And hereof were witnesses all the companies of the ships which were then present, so that a man could hardly draw a bucket of water clear of some corruption." Mr. Boyle was also assured by one of his acquaintance, who had been becalmed for about fourteen days, in the Indian ocean, that the water, for want of motion, began to stink with life; and that, had the calor controued much longer, the stench would probably have poisoned bim. These assertions may he supported by our know ledge that animal food left to corrupt, will eugender Life.

490. Fishes are divided into four orders:

1. Apodes; such as have no ventrical fins, a eels, congers, &c.

2. Jagulares; such as have the ventral fins placed before the pectoral, as cod, &c.

3. Thoracici; those that inspirate by the gills .only, as the perch, &c.

And, 4. Abdominales; those having ventral fins behind the pectoral in the abdomen, as pike, salmon, &c.

491. Insects, the fifth class of animated beings, are, in many respects, the most entitled to our wonder and attention, on account of the amazing variety of their forms and habits.

Those animalcula, of which a thousand might dance on the point of a needle, are as curiously as beautifully, and as perfectly formed, as the largest animals in nature.

Myriads of creatures (each too nicely small
Bare sense to reach) for thy inspection call,
In animalcules, germs, seeds, and flow'rs,
Live, in their perfect shapes, the little pow're.
Vast trees lie pictured in their slend'rest grains :
Armies one wat'ry globule contains.

Some, so minute, that, to their fine extreme,
The mite a vast leviathan will seem--
That yet, of organs, functions, sense partake,
Equal with animals of largest make;

In curious limbs and clothing they surpass,
By far, the comeliest of the bulky mass.

THOMSON.

Obs. Insects are small in our eyes but not so to the Creator, who views infinity itself at a glance; and, compared with infinity, an emmet is as large as the solar system. Largeness ang smallness are terms as relative us up or down.

492. Insects, viewed through a microscope, would teach children to respect their lives and happiness, and never, in wantonness, to destroy the most apparently insignificant. The child who treads upon a worm, or destroys a fly in sport, gives indication of a wicked, cruel, or thoughtless mind.

The poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal suff 'rance, feels as great a pang
As when the giant dies.

SHAKSPEARE.

Ods. The influence of kind treatment on the fiercest animals, is beautifully decribed by PRATT, in his "Lower World:"

Kindness can woo the lion from his den→→
(A moral lesson to the sons of men!)
His mighty heart in silken bonds can draw
And bend his nature to sweet. Pity's law.
Kindness can lure the eagle from her nest,
'Midst sun-beams plac'd, content with man to rest:
Can make the elephant, whose bulk supplies
The warrior-tower, compassionate, as wise:
Make the fell tygress (from her chain unbound,
Herself unfed, her craving offspring round,)
Forget the force of hunger and of blood,
Meekly receive from man her long-wish'd food a
Take too the chastisement, and (if 'tis just)
Submissive take it, crouching to the dust,
Kindness can habits, nay, the nature change.
Of all who swim the deep, or forests range:
And for the mild, domestic train, who come,
The dog--the steed---with thee to fled a home
Gladly they serve thee; serve thee better too,
When only happy beings meet their view.

Ah! then, let gentler accents, gentler looks, supply The thunders of thy voice, the lightnings of thine eye. 493. The class of insects is divided into seven orders, viz.

a. Coleoptera, or insects having four wings: the two superior ones being crustaceous, and furnished with a straight suture.

b. Hemiptera; insects smaller than the preceding, with four wings: the two superior semicrustaceous, and the interior edges lying one upon the other.

e. Lepidoptera; insects with four wings, all of them imbricated with scales