As a brief note, not a disquisition, upon the subject, is designed, we will pass over the habits and dispositions of beasts and insects, strongly charactered as they are, and only instance a few of our land birds, as affording the most familiar instances; and we shall find that it is not the genera only, but the individuals which compose them in many instances, that are supported by different aliment. And first, those birds which we denominate as Rapacious, such as falcons, hawks, owls, live upon animal food which they capture, kill, and devour; abstaining, unless stimulated by necessity, from creatures they may find dead. Then come the pies: of these, the raven and crow likewise eat animal food, but it is generally such as has been killed by violence or ceased to exist, only in cases of want[54] killing for themselves. The rook, the daw, the magpie, consume worms, grubs, and are not addicted, except from hunger, to eating other animal matters. The two first feed at times in society; the latter associates with neither, but feeds in places remote from such as are frequented by them. The jay too eats grubs and such things, but seeks them out under hedges, in coverts and places which others of his kind abandon to him. The cuckoo seems principally to live upon the eggs of birds with a few insects and larvæ occasionally; the wryneck upon emmets, from heaps under hedges near concealment—the woodpeckers upon insects found upon trees; and when they seek for the emmet, they prefer the antheaps of commons and open places;—the halcyon upon small fishes:—thus all these creatures, even when they require similar aliment, diet at their separate boards. Of the Gallinaceous birds, the wood-grouse is supported by the young shoots of the pine in his forests; but the black and red grouse live upon berries found on the moor, the seeds and tops of the heath; the partridge upon seeds in the field, blades of grass or of corn; the pheasant upon mast, acorns, berries from the hedge or the brake. The bustard is content to live upon worms alone, found in early morning upon downs and wide extended plains, where none dispute his right or compete with him, but one species of plover. The doves make their principal meals in open fields, upon green herbage and seeds. The stare again feeds upon worms and insects, but in places remote from the bustard, nor does he contend with the rook, or the daw, but takes his meat and is away.