Eagles and other birds of prey build on trees, or on other inacceffible Spots. They not only pair, but continue in pairs all the year round; and the fame pair procreate year after year. This at leaft is the cafe of eagles: the male and female hunt together, unlefs during incubation, during which time the female is fed by the male. A greater number than a fingle pair never are seen in com. pany.

Gregarious birds pair, in order probably to prevent difcord in a fociety confined to a narrow space. This is the cafe particularly of pigeons and rooks. The male and female fit on the eggs alternately, and divide the care of feeding their young.

Partridges, plovers, pheasants, peafowl, groufe, and other kinds that place their nefts on the ground, have the instinct of pairing: but differ from fuch as build on trees in the following particular, that after the female is impregnated, the completes her tafk without needing any help from the male. Retiring from him, the chufes a fafe fpot for her neft, where she can find plenty of worms and grafs feed at hand. And her young, as foon as hatched, take foot, and feek food for themfelves. The only remaining duty incumbent on the dam is, to lead them to proper places for food, and to call them together when danger impends. Some males, provoked at the defertion of their mates, break the eggs if they ftumble on them. Eider ducks pair like other birds that place their nefts on the ground; and the female finishes her neft with down plucked from her own breast. If the nest be destroyed for the down, which is remarkably warm and elastic, she makes another neft as before. If the be robb'd a second time, the makes a third neft; but the male furnishes the down. A lady of fpirit obferved, that the Eider duck may give a leffon to many a married woman, who is more difpofed to pluck her husband than herfelf. The black game never pair: in fpring the cock on an eminence crows, and claps his wings; and all the females within hearing inftantly refort to him.

Pairing birds, excepting thofe of prey, flock together in Febru. ary, in order to chufe their mates. They foon disperse; and are not feen afterward but in pairs.

Pairing is unknown to quadrupeds that feed on grafs. To fuch it would be ufelefs; as the female gives fuck to her young while the herself is feeding. If M. Buffon deferve credit, the roe deer are an exception. They pair, though they feed on grafs, and have but one litter in a year.

Beafts of prey, fuch as lions, tigers, wolves, pair not. The female is left to fhift for herself and for her young; which is a laborious task, and often fo unfuccefsful as to fhorten the life of many of them. Pairing is effential to birds of prey, becaufe incubation leaves the female no fufficient time to hunt for food. Pairing is not neceffary to beafts of prey, because their young can bear a long faft. Add another reason, that they would multiply so fast by pairing as to prove troublesome neighbours to the human race.

Among animals that pair not, males fight desperately about a female. Such a battle among horned cattle is finely defcribed by Lucretius. Nor is it unufual for feven or eight lions to wage bloody war for a fingle female.

'The

The fame reafon that makes pairing neceffary for gregarious birds, obtains with refpect to gregarious quadrupeds thofe efpecially who tore up food for winter, and during that feafon live in common. Discord among fuch would be attended with worfe confequences than even among lions and bulls, who are not confined to one place. The beavers, with refpect to pairing, refemble birds that place their nets on the ground. As foon as the young are produced, the males abandon their stock of food to their mates, and live at large; but return frequently to vifit them while they are fuckling their young.

"Hedge-hogs pair as well as feveral of the monkey-kind. We are not well acquainted with the natural history of these animals; but it would appear that the young require the nurfing care of both parents.

'Seals have a fingular economy. Polygamy feems to be a law of nature among them, as a male affociates with feveral females. The fea-turtle has no occafion to pair, as the female concludes her task by laying her eggs in the fand. The young are hatched by the fans and immediately crawl to the fea.

In every other branch of animal economy concerning the continuance of the fpecies, the hand of Providence is equally confpicuous. The young of pairing birds are produced in the spring, when the weather begins to be comfortable; and their early production makes them firm and vigorous before winter, to endure the hardfhips of that rigorous feafon. Such early production is in particular favourable to eagles, and other birds of prey; for in the fpring they have plenty of food, by the return of birds of pafiage.

Though the time of gestation varies confiderably in the different quadrupeds that feed on grafs, yet the female is regularly delivered early in fummer, when grafs is in plenty. The mare admits the ftallion in fummer, carries eleven months, and is delivered the beginning of May. The cow differs little. A fheep and a goat take the male in November, carry five months, and produce when grafs begins to fpring. Thefe animals love thort grafs, upon which a mare or a cow would ftarve. The rutting-featon of the red deer is the end of September, and beginning of October: it continues for three weeks, during which time the male runs from female to female without intermillion. The female brings forth in May, or beginning of June; and the female of the fallow deer brings forth at the fame time. The fhe-afs is in feafon beginning of fummer; but the bears twelve months, which fixes her delivery to fummer. Wolves and foxes copulate in December: the female carries five months, and brings forth in April, when animal food is as plentiful as at any other feafon; and the fhe lion brings forth about the same time. Of this early birth there is one evident advantage, hinted above: the

• I have it upon good authority, that ewes pafturing in a hilly country, pitch early on fome fnug fpot, where they may drop their young with fafety. And hence the risk of removing a flock to a new field immediately before delivery: many lambs perish by being dropped in improper places.

young

young winter.

have time to grow fo firm as eafily to bear the inclemencies of

• Were one to guess what probably would be the time of rutting, fummer would be named, efpecially in a cold climate. And yet to quadrupeds who carry but four or five months, that economy would be pernicious, throwing the time of delivery to an improper season for warmth, as well as for food. Wifely is it ordered, that the delivery should conftantly be at the best feafon for both.

Gregarious quadrupeds that ftore up food for winter, differ from all other quadrupeds with refpect to the time of delivery. Beavers copulate the end of autumn, and bring forth in January, when their granary is full. The fame economy probably obtains among all other quadrupeds of the fame kind.

One rule takes place among all brute animals, without a fingle exception, That the female never is burdened with two litters at the fame time. The time of geftation is fo unerringly calculated by nature, that the young brood upon hand can provide for themselves before another brood comes on. Even a hare is not an exception, though many litters are produced in a year. The female carries thirty or thirty-one days; but the fuckles her young only twenty days, after which they provide for themselves, and leave her free to a new litter.

The care of animals to preserve their young from harm is a beautiful inftance of Providence. When a hind hears the hounds, the puts herself in the way of being hunted, and leads them away from her fawn. The lapwing is no lefs ingenious: if a perfon approach, fhe flies about, retiring always from her neft. A partridge is extremely artful: the hops away, hanging a wing as if broken: lingers till the perfon approach, and hops again. A hen, timid by nature, is bold as a lion in defence of her young: the darts upon every crea⚫ ture that threatens danger. The roe-buck defends its young with resolution and courage. So doth a ram; and fo do many other qua drupeds.

It is obferved by an ingenious writer, that nature sports in the colour of domestic animals, in order that meu may the more rea dily distinguish their own. It is not eafy to fay, why colour is more varied in fuch animals, than in those which remain in the ftate of nature: I can only fay, that the caufe affigned is not fatisfactory. One is feldom at a loss to diftinguish one animal from another; and Providence never interpofes to vary the ordinary course of nature, for an end fo little neceffary as to make the diftinction still more obvious. Such interpofition would beside have a bad effect, by encouraging inattention and indolence.

The foregoing particulars are offered to the public as hints merely may it not be hoped, that they will excite curiofity in those who relish natural hiftory? The field is rich, tho' little cultivated; and I know no other branch of natural history that opens finer views into the conduct of Providence.'

The English reader will obferve a few Scotticifms, &c. fome of the most obvious of which we have only diftinguished by italics: farther notice of fuch minute blemishes being unnecessary.

* Pennant.

[To be continued.]

R.

ART.

ART. IV. Eunomus: or Dialogues concerning the Law and Conftitas tion of England, concluded. See laft Month's Review.

TH

HE converfations of which we have already given an ac count, are represented as having been carried on by only two perfons, Policrites and Eunomus. But in the dialogue now before us, which comprehends the third volume, an additional Speaker is introduced, Philander, an accomplished gentleman, who had lately returned from abroad, after three years abfence, and had travelled to good purpose; having enlarged his knowledge, and cultivated his mind, without injuring his affection and esteem for his native country. This new character adds variety and spirit to the dialogue, which is ftill farther recommended by the peculiar importance of the subject on which it

treats.

. After the converfation between Eunomus, Philander, and Policrites had turned upon a number of topics, which naturally prefented themselves on the occafion of a friend's having arrived in England who had refided fo long in foreign parts, they were infenfibly led, from fome obfervations advanced on one fide, and questioned on the other, to a more ferious contemplation of government in general, and that of their own conflitution in particular. The confideration of government in general is affigne to Philander, whofe obfervations are judicious and liberal. He afferts, with Mr. Locke, that compact is the juft original of civil fociety; and he answers the objections which have been made to this opinion. He confiders governments only in two lights, either as monarchical or popular; but he obferves that the combinations of these with all their fhades and differences are infinite. With regard to the fuppofed origin of different forms of government, he thinks that not only an elective monarchy would obtain in the world before an hereditary monarchy; but that monarchy itself seems not to be the first form of government that fociety (taking its rife from compact) would naturally fall into.

• However amiable, fays he, a form of government it may be, when qualified as with us; monarchy, in the abftract, is certainly the most remote from the idea of natural equality. For, in the ab ftract, what can be more oppofite than that any fet of people, from being all equal in power and authority among themselves, thould all unite under the power and authority of a fingle perfon? A democracy, as it has least of the idea of government in it, seems however to be the first obvious mode of affemblage from a state of nature: it is a fociety indeed that least infringes on natural liberty, but at the fame time, leaft corrects the abuses of it, which is the end and aim of all focieties. A kind of limited Republic feems to be the first and most obvious ftep to a regular fubordination, and fociety, properly fo called: for without fubordination, no durable form can REV. June, 1774. fubfift.

Gg

fubfift. The very name of government implies it. Besides that the degree of liberty feems to make a Republic an obvious form of government from a state of nature, when liberty is to be given up: fo is it a likely form to be laid hold of, from the impatience of mankind, where liberty has been abused under a monarchy; and that monarchy comes to be difmembered by part of the fubjects fhaking off their antient fubjection, and forming new affemblages of their own. The ftates of Holland afford a late inftance of what I am fpeaking. The feveral free states of Italy now exifting, originally the fragments of that vaft empire that fell to pieces by its own weight, is a more distant but a more ftriking example of the fame thing.'

As to the great question about the best form of government, our Author is of opinion that lefs need to be said of it, because it is the duty of subjects, under any government, to take things as they find them; a pofition which might, in fome refpects, be justly difputed. A perfect government he looks upon to be as mere an idea as perfect virtue, or perpetual motion. The true general idea of the thing itfelf is, that it must be, "fuch an one as will diminish least of natural liberty, and at the same time, best answer the end of fociety;" and he trufts that our own will stand this teft. But though he will not pretend to decide which is the beft form of government of those that now exift, fuppofing no one to be entirely perfect; yet he can by no means agree with Mr. Pope when he fays, "That which is best administered is beft." This notion our Dialogift clearly refutes; after which he traces the natural progrefs of government, and points out the difficulties that ftrangers have in acquiring a knowledge of the laws of foreign countries.

Philander having difcharged the task affigned him, our Author proceeds to his principal fubject, which is the English conftitution. His fentiments upon this head are put into the mouth of Eunomus, who, through all the three dialogues, is reprefented as the chief fpeaker. In the progrefs of the difcourfe, the nature of the English Conftitution is defcribed, its antiquity is afferted, and some mistakes concerning it are rectified. It is fhewn in particular, and in a very fatisfactory manner, that the King is one of three estates of the realm, and that the Spiritual Lords do not conftitute a diftinct State. The Author, in embracing this opinion, hath no intention to detract from the privileges of the Spiritual Lords, as will amply appear from what he hath alledged in vindication of their being diftinctly mentioned in the legislative declaration of every Act of

Parliament.

This infertion, he fays, ferves as a conftant recognition of their legislative capacity, either 1. to prevent people in all ages arguing against their legislative right, from fome peculiar circumstances attending them; as their not being tried by Parliament as temporal

Lords,