Birds have the greatest variety of notes; they have, indeed, a variety, which seems almost sufficient to make a speech adequate to the purposes of a life which is regulated by instinct, and can admit little change or improvement.  To the cries of birds, curiosity or superstition has been always attentive; many have studied the language of the feathered tribes, and some have boasted that they understood it.

The most skilful or most confident interpreters of the sylvan dialogues have been commonly found among the philosophers of the east, in a country where the calmness of the air, and the mildness of the seasons, allow the student to pass a great part of the year in groves and bowers.  But what may be done in one place by peculiar opportunities, may be performed in another by peculiar diligence.  A shepherd of Bohemia has, by long abode in the forests, enabled himself to understand the voice of birds; at least he relates with great confidence a story, of which the credibility is left to be considered by the learned.

“As I was sitting” said he, “within a hollow rock, and watching my sheep that fed in the valley, I heard two vultures interchangeably crying on the summit of the cliff.  Both voices were earnest and deliberate.  My curiosity prevailed over my care of the flock; I climbed slowly and silently from crag to crag, concealed among the shrubs, till I found a cavity where I might sit and listen without suffering or giving disturbance.”

“I soon perceived, that my labour would be well repaid; for an old vulture was sitting on a naked prominence, with her young about her, whom she was instructing in the arts of a vulture’s life, and preparing, by the last lecture, for their final dismission to the mountains and the skies.”

“My children,” said the old vulture, “you will the less want my instructions, because you have had my practice before your eyes; you have seen me snatch from the farm the household fowl; you have seen me seize the leveret in the bush, and the kid in the pasture; you know how to fix your talons, and how to balance your flight when you are laden with your prey.  But you remember the taste of more delicious food; I have often regaled you with the flesh of man.”  “Tell us,” said the young vultures, “where man may be found, and how he may be known; his flesh is surely the natural food of a vulture.  Why have you never brought a man in your talons to the nest?” “He is too bulky,” said the mother; “when we find a man, we can only tear away his flesh, and leave his bones upon the ground.”  “Since man is so big,” said the young ones, “how do you kill him?  You are afraid of the wolf and of the bear, by what power are vultures superior to man? is man more defenceless than a sheep?” “We have not the strength of man,” returned the mother, “and I am sometimes in doubt whether we have the subtilty; and the vultures would seldom feast upon his flesh, had not nature, that devoted him to our uses, infused into him a strange ferocity,