From the same cause may be traced the pretended foresight attributed to the feathered race; nor is it necessary to suppose the Almighty has conferred on them any particular law to account for the construction of their nest. Love is the grand sentiment that excites them to the laborious undertaking; the male and female feel a mutual attachment, they wish to be alone, and therefore seek retirement from the bustle and annoyances of the world; and having sought the most obscure part of a forest, to render that privacy the more comfortable they collect straws, leaves, &c. to form a common habitation, wherein they may enjoy themselves with perfect tranquillity. Some, however, content themselves with holes in trees, or nests they find which have been formed by others. But all this does not prove a presentiment of future wants, but are rather the effects of feeling and organization. A strong evidence of their ignorance with respect to futurity, nay, even of the past, or present, may be drawn from a hen's not having the power to distinguish her own from the eggs of another bird, and not perceiving that the young ducks which she has hatched, belong not to her; nay, she will even sit with the same assiduous attention upon chalk eggs, as upon those from which a produce may be expected. Neither do domestic poultry make nests, although they are constructed by the wild duck and wood hen, and this most probably from feeling that security in being familiarized, which the latter seek for in a retreat and solitude. The nests of birds, therefore, in my opinion, any more than the cells of bees, or the food collected by the ant and field-mouse, cannot be attributed to any particular laws to each species, but depend upon those feelings arising from the general laws of nature, and with which every animated being is endowed. It is not surprising that man, who knows so little of himself, who so frequently confounds his sensations with his ideas, who so imperfectly distinguishes the productions of the mind from the produce of his brain, should compare himself to the brute animals, and admit the only difference between them depended on the greater or less degree of perfection in the organs; it is not surprising that he should make them reason, determine, and understand, in the same manner with himself, and that he should attribute to them not only the qualities which he has, but even those he has not. When man, however, has once thoroughly examined and analyzed himself, he will discover the dignity of his being, he will feel the existence of his soul, he will cease to demean his nature, and, with a single glance, he will see the infinite distance which the Supreme Being has put between him and the brutes.