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XII. On the Migration of certain Birds, and on other Matters relating to 
the feathered Tribes, By William Markwick, Efg. Affciate. of the 
Linnean Society. | 
1 
Read February 3, 1789. 
1 H E different accounts which have been publifhed by va- 
rious authors relating to the œconomy of birds, have 
always appeared to me exceedingly ftrange and unfatisfactory. I 
was willing to attribute thefe contrarieties to a variety of reafons, 
I thought perhaps that different caufes operated upon thefe little 
animals, and led them to adopt different modes of living, fuitable 
to the urgency of the occafions. But at length I became rather 
confirmed in the idea, that many authors wrote not from their 
= own obfervation, but from guefs, and the vague accounts which 
others had given before, who had ftill received them from others 
no better acquainted with the fubject than themfelves. This de- 
termined me to make accurate obfervations of what fhould really 
occur. I therefore offer the following remarks to the ‘Linnean 
Society, as matters which are to be depended upon, and which I 
myfelf faw: and I the more readily enter upon this tafk, as I fhould 
apprehend if different obfervers ftationed in different parts of the 
kingdom would take the trouble to notice the occurrences which | 
happen, not only the catalogue of the Britifh fpecies would be 
moft correctly afcertained, but their œconomy illuftrated fo effec- 
I ee tually, 
