heats of those which lie beneath the Line, or are enclosed
between the Tropics--neither destructive climates, nor trackless
deserts, nor stormy oceans, can interpose obstacles powerful enough to
quell the enterprise of man!--that the rocky caverns of the loneliest
sea-coasts, and the deepest recesses of inland forests, are insufficient
to protect from him the most terrible beasts of prey which inhabit
them;--and that, in short, all the kingdoms of nature pay tribute to his
sagacity or his power, his courage or his curiosity. This feeling is
heightened, amidst the scene we have attempted to describe, by still
more numerous representatives of the feathered race. Birds of the
boldest wing and brightest hues--the denizens of the woods and the
waters--of every variety of plumage, habit, song, and size--from the
splendid macaw and toucan to the uncouth pelican and the shapeless
puffin--from the gigantic ostrich to the beautiful but diminutive golden
wren; in short, all the birds which are congregated in this spot come,
literally, from every corner of our globe. The great alpine vulture may
have sailed above the heights of Hohenlinden; the Egyptian vulture have
roosted on the terraced roofs of Cairo, or among the sacred walls of
Phylae; the condor, have built in the ruined palaces of the Incas of
Peru; the flamingo or the ibis have waded through the lakes and marshes
which surround the desolation of Babylon; the eagle of America have
ranged, perhaps daily, over those narrow straits which separate two
worlds and bid defiance to all navigation! The emu has long since
tracked the vast interior of that fifth continent whose inland rivers,
tribes of mankind, quadrupeds, and mineral and vegetable productions,
remain still, to us, sealed mysteries. The crowned crane has drawn its
food from the waters of that vast lake of Tschad, in the search for
which so many Europeans have perished; the little stormy petrel, borne
on the surge, or wafted by the gale, has travelled to every shore that
has been visited by the tempests in which it loves to rove; and the
wandering stork, like the restless swallow, has nestled, indifferently,
among the chimneys of Amsterdam, the campaniles of Rome or of Pisa, and
on the housetops of Timbuctoo. In looking round upon these various birds
and quadrupeds of all the regions of our globe--in considering the
distant countries of their birth--their strangeness to us in feature or
in form--the endless varieties of