VIRG. Georg. i. ver. 415.

I think their breasts with heav'nly souls inspir'd.
DRYDEN.


My friend Sir ROGER is very often merry with me upon my passing so much
of my time among his poultry. He has caught me twice or thrice looking
after a bird's nest, and several times sitting an hour or two together
near an hen and chickens. He tells me he believes I am personally
acquainted with every fowl about his house; calls such a particular cock
my favourite, and frequently complains that his ducks and geese have
more of my company than himself.

I must confess I am infinitely delighted with those speculations of
nature which are to be made in a country-life; and as my reading has
very much lain among books of natural history, I cannot forbear
recollecting upon this occasion the several remarks which I have met
with in authors, and comparing them with what falls under my own
observation: The argument for providence drawn from the natural history
of animals being in my opinion demonstrative.

The make of every kind of animal is different from that of every other
kind; and yet there is not the least turn in the muscles or twist in the
fibres of any one, which does not render them more proper for that
particular animal's way of life than any other cast or texture of them
would have been.

The most violent appetites in all creatures are _Lust_ and
_Hunger_: The first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate