264 Wiu> Birds and their Haunts 



those birds which spend the summer with us and leave 

 us in the winter. Birds which find the temperature 

 and circumstances of our summer most congenial to their 

 wants and habits retire on the approach of severe weather 

 to find something similar in the south ; while others which 

 remain among us in winter, to avoid the extreme rigour 

 of that season in the most northernly regions, return to 

 their own country when that rigour has abated. Never- 

 theless; there are difficulties in accounting for the 

 migration of the winter birds of passage, which are not so 

 apparent in the case of the others. There appears no 

 necessity, either on the score of food or climate, for their 

 departure from us. They probably come here in winter 

 for the sake of food and a more genial climate than that 

 which they have left ; but in some very severe seasons, 

 when there is a great scarcity of berries, they find their 

 subsistence here with difficulty, and often perish from 

 the want of sufficient food. It is, therefore, unaccount- 

 able that after they have remained through the hard- 

 ships of a severe winter with us, and might be expected 

 to rejoice at the approaching spring, and build their 

 nests and couple, they, on the contrary, then take their 

 departure, as if that wild and pleasant temperature, 

 which delights and cherishes most other creatures, were 

 disagreeable to them. The place of their summer retire- 

 ment is Sweden, and other countries in that latitude ; 

 but as they would find those countries too cold for their 

 reception, and probably destitute of provision, if they 

 went thither immediately on leaving this country, they 

 travel gradually, and prolong their passage through the 

 more moderate countries of Germany and Poland, so 

 that by the time they reach the northern regions, the 

 severity of the cold has much abated, and some sorts of 

 food may be there found. The winter food of these 

 birds being berries, and particularly haus, and as these 

 grow more abundantly here than in northern regions, 

 this may be one of the circumstances which attract 

 them to this country ; but, no doubt, their principal 

 motive is to exchange for a more temperate climate the 

 rigour of the frozen countries of the north. Their 



