ich has been recently given to the public by Tiedemann;
from whose work it appears, that this creature presents itself to us with
the wings of the insect, and with the nervous system, the brain, and the
cranium of the bird, in their several rudiments.

The synthesis of fish and insect in the birds, might be illustrated
equally in detail with the former; but it will be sufficient for our
purpose, that as in both the former cases, the insect and the fish, so
here in that of the birds, the powers are under the predominance of
irritability; the sensibility being dormant in the first, awakening in the
second, and awake, but still subordinate, in the third. Of this my limits
confine me to a single presumptive proof, viz., the superiority in
strength and courage of the female in the birds of prey. For herein,
indeed, does the difference of the sexes universally consist, wherever
both the forces are developed, that the female is characterised by quicker
irritability, and the male by deeper sensibility. How large a stride has
been now made by Nature in the progress of individuation, what
ornithologist does not know? From a multitude of instances we select the
most impressive, the power of sound, with the first rudiments of
modulation! That all languages designate the melody of birds as singing
(though according to Blumenbach man only sings, while birds do but
whistle), demonstrates that it has been felt as, what indeed it is, a
tentative and prophetic prelude of something yet to come. With this
conjoin the power and the tendency to acquire articulation, and to imitate
speech; conjoin the building instinct and the migratory, the monogamy of
several species, and the pairing of almost all; and we shall have
collected new instances of the usage (I dare not say law) according to
which Nature lets fall, in order to resume, and steps backward the
furthest, when she means to leap forwards with the greatest concentration
of energy.

For lo! in the next step of ascent the power of sensibility has assumed
her due place and rank: her minority is at an end, and the complete and
universal presence of a nervous system unites absolutely, by instanteity
of time what, with the due allowances for the transitional process, had
before been either lost in sameness, or perplexed by multiplicity, or
compacted by a finer mechanism. But with this, all the analogies with
which Nature had delighted us in the preceding step seem lost, and, with
the single