Natural Theology; Or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1824 edition. Excerpt: ...mixed. The long tapering bill of the snipe and woodcock, penetrates still deeper into, moist earth, which is the bed in which the food of that species is lodged. This is exactly the instrument which the animal wanted. It did not want strength in its bill, which was inconsistent with the slender form of the animal's neck, as well as unnecessary for the kind of aliment upon which it subsists; but it wanted length to reach its object. But the species of bill which belongs to birds that live by suction, deserves to be described in its particular relation to that office. They are what naturalists call serrated or dentated bills; the inside of them, towards the edge, being thickly set with parallel or concentric rows, . of short, strong, sharp-pointed prickles. These, though they should be called teeth, are not for the purpose of mastication, like the teeth of quadrupeds; nor yet, as in fish, for the seizing and retaining of their prey; but for a quite different use. They form a filter. The duck, by means of them, discusses the mud; examining, with great accuracy, the puddle, the brake, every mixture which is likely to contain her food. The operation is thus carried on. The liquid or semi-liquid substances, in which the animal has plunged her bill, she draws, by the action of her lungs, through the narrow interstices which lie between these teeth; catching, as the stream passes across her beak, whatever it may happen to bring along with it, that proves agreeable to her choice, and easily dismissing all the rest. Now suppose the purpose to have been, out of a mass of confused and heterogeneous substances, to separate for the use of the animal, or rather to enable the animal to separate for its own, those few particles which suited its taste and..