;

lowing history of their manner of retiring, which he received from fome countrymen and others. They afferted, that fometimes the Swallows affembled in numbers on a reed, till it broke and funk with them to the bottom and their immerfion was preluded by a dirge of a quarter of an hour in length: that others would unite in laying hold of a ftraw with their bills, and fo plunge down in society: others again would form a large mafs, by clinging together with their feet, and fo commit them felves to the deep.

"Such are the relations given by those that are fond of this opinion; and, though delivered without exaggeration, must provoke a smile. They affign not the smallest reason to account for these birds being able to endure fo long a fubmerfion without being fuffocated, or without decaying, in an element fo unnatural to fo delicate a bird; when we know that the Otter *, the Cormorant,

and

• Though entirely fatisfied in our own mind of the impoffi bility of these relations; yet, defirous of strengthening our ●pinion with some better authority, we applied to that able anatomist,

and the Grebes, foon perish, if caught under ice, or entangled in nets: and it is well known, that those animals will continue much longer under water than any others to whom nature hath denied that particular structure of heart, neceffary for a long refidence beneath that element."

anatomift, Mr. John Hunter; who was fo obliging to inform us, that he had diffected many Swallows, but found nothing in them different from other birds as to the organs of refpiration. That all those animals which he had diffected of the class that sleep during winter, such as lizards, frogs, &c. had a very different conformation as to those organs : that all these animals, he believes, do breathe in their torpid state; and, as far as his experience reaches, he knows they do and that therefore he esteems it a very wild opinion that terrestrial animals can remain any long time under water without drowning.

I shall here infert a receipt of the manner of making pictures of birds with their natural feathers.

A RECEIPT

A

RECEIPT

FOR MAKING

PICTURES OF BIRDS,

WITH THEIR

NATURAL FEATHERS.

FIRST, take a thin board, or pannel of deal,

or wainscot well feasoned, that it may not fhrink, then smoothly paste on white paper, and let it dry; and if the wood cafts its colour through, you may paste on a fecond paper, and it will be whiter: let the fecond paper dry, then get ready any bird that you would represent, and draw it as exact as may be on your pa per'd pannel, of its natural fize, (middle-fized birds are best for this work) then paint what

ground

ground-work, or tree, or other thing, you design to set your bird on, together with the bill and legs of the bird in water-colours, leaving the bird to be covered with its own natural feathers. You must first prepare the part to be feathered, by laying on pretty thick gum Arabic, diffolved in water, with a large hair pencil; then lay the pannel flat, and let it dry hard, and when dry cover it with your gum-water a fecond time, and let it dry, and then a third, in cafe you do not find it lie with a good body on the paper; the thickness of a fhilling, when dried hard, is fufficient. When your piece is thus prepared, take the feathers off from your bird, as you use them, beginning always at the tail, and points of the wing, and working upwards to the head; obferving to cover that part of your draught with the feather, that you take from the fame part in your bird, letting them fall one over another in their natural order. You must prepare your feathers by cutting off the downy part that is about their bottoms; and the larger feathers must have the infides of their shafts shaved off with a knife, to make them lie flat; the quills of the wings must have their inner

webs

webs clipped off, that in laying them the gum may hold them by their fhafts. When you begin to lay them, take a pair of steel pliers to hold the feathers in; and have fome gum-water, not too thin, and a large pencil ready to moisten the gummed ground-work by little and little as you work it; then lay your feathers on the moistened parts, which must not be waterish, but fomething tacky or clammy to hold the feathers. You should prepare a parcel of small leaden weights, in the form of sugar-loaves, which you may caft in fand, by first making holes in its furface with a pointed ftick: these weights will be neceffary to set on the feathers you have newly laid on to hold them to the gum, till they are dry and fixed; but you must be cautious left the gum come through the feathers; for it not only fmears them, but dries to the bottoms of the weights, and you will be apt to pull off the feathers with the weights, which will diforder your work. When you

have wholly covered your bird with feathers, you muft, with a little thick gum, stick on a piece of paper cut round, of the bignefs, and in the place of the eye, which you must colour like