ABSTRACT
THE sixth, and most interesting order of birds, is the Passeres, which includes all the singing birds, feeding either on seeds exclusively, or on insects, or on both indiscriminately. It is justly observed by Mr. White, I think, that the birds of this order brought from foreign countries are all of the hard-billed genus, and live upon grain and seeds, with which they can be supplied during the voyage; while the soft-billed birds, which require insects for their nourishment, cannot be supported at sea, and therefore we never receive them alive in England.13 Latham,14 a late ornithologist, has made a distinct order of the Columba, and deviates in some other respects from the arrangement of Linnæus; but the attachment which, as a very humble student in botany, I have felt for the Swedish naturalist, makes me desirous of preferring his system, and the more so as it is the most simple.
