01^ MiaRATIOlf. + 



By Colonel H. ^L DRUMMOND HAY, C.M.Z.S. 



THE following remarks, gathered from different authorities, 

 coupled with observations of my own, made in various 

 parts of the world, have been drawn up more with the view of 

 directing attention to, than with the attempt of throwing any- 

 new light on, a subject of which perhaps there is none more 

 wonderful in natural history, or perhaps in the main less 

 understood, than the phenomenon of migration. 



Migration, in the strict acceptation of the word, we see 

 to perfection in birds. The case, says Professor Baird, 

 (Am. Jour, of Science, 1866., Ibis. 1867-72,) is quite different 

 with reptiles, and most insects and mammals, of which a few 

 species only change their residence, or leave their place of birth, 

 not in obedience to the instinct of reproduction, but of 

 necessity, caused by overcrowding, the search for suitable food, 

 &c. A true parallel, however, he goes on to say, is seen in 

 the movements of fishes in search of a suitable place to deposit 

 their spawn, which takes place with the same regularity as 

 to date and direction J that we find in birds. This no doubt 

 applies well to America and other parts of the world where 

 great rivers exist, such for instance as the Mississippi, which 

 runs due north and south, and where a fish spawned in 

 the upper waters would have in descending to the sea to 

 pass through many degrees of latitude, and the same on 

 its periodical return to the place of its birth; but in our own 

 rivers and seas, 1 take it that the movement pertains more to 

 partial, or local, than regular migration, that is to say, the 

 entire quitting of our shores for warmer latitudes, and 



t Read before the Perthshire Society of Natural Science. 

 ^ North, and South. 



