put together with so much art and niceness as those of the universe.  What then must be a design so extensive, so coherent, so excellent, so beneficial?  The necessity of those laws, instead of deterring me from inquiring into their author, does but heighten my curiosity and admiration.  Certainly, it required a hand equally artful and powerful to put in His work an order equally simple and teeming, constant and useful.  Wherefore I will not scruple to say with the Scripture, “Let every star haste to go whither the Lord sends it; and when He speaks let them answer with trembling, Here we are,” Ecce adsumus.

Sect.  XIX.  Of Animals, Beasts, Fowl, Birds, Fishes, Reptiles, and Insects.

But let us turn our eyes towards animals, which still are more worthy of admiration than either the skies or stars.  Their species are numberless.  Some have but two feet, others four, others again a great many.  Some walk; others crawl, or creep; others fly; others swim; others fly, walk, or swim, by turns.  The wings of birds, and the fins of fishes, are like oars, that cut the waves either of air or water, and steer the floating body either of the bird, or fish, whose structure is like that of a ship.  But the pinions of birds have feathers with a down, that swells in the air, and which would grow unwieldy in the water.  And, on the contrary, the fins of fishes have sharp and dry points, which cut the water, without imbibing it, and which do not grow heavier by being wet.  A sort of fowl that swim, such as swans, keep their wings and most of their feathers above water, both lest they should wet them and that they may serve them, as it were, for sails.  They have the art to turn those feathers against the wind, and, in a manner, to tack, as ships do when the wind does not serve.  Water-fowls, such as ducks, have at their feet large skins that stretch, somewhat like rackets, to keep them from sinking on the oozy and miry banks of rivers.

Amongst the animals, wild beasts, such as lions, have their biggest muscles about the shoulders, thighs, and legs; and therefore these animals are nimble, brisk, nervous, and ready to rush forward.  Their jaw-bones are prodigiously large, in proportion to the rest of their bodies.  They have teeth and claws, which serve them, as terrible weapons, to tear in pieces and devour other animals.  For the same reason, birds of prey, such as eagles, have a beak and pounces that pierce everything.  The muscles of their pinions are extreme large and brawny, that their wings may have a stronger and more rapid motion:  and so those creatures, though somewhat heavy, soar aloft and tower up easily to the very clouds, from whence they shoot, like a thunderbolt, on the quarry they have in view.  Other animals have horns.  The greatest strength of some lies in their backs and necks; and others can only kick.  Every species, however, has both offensive and defensive arms.  Their hunting is a kind of war, which