306 SYUVID^. 



iu it to be more or less acquainted with its habits. These 

 to a large extent may be observed even at our very doors, 

 and to the attentive naturalist there is perhaps no bird which 

 supplies so ready a key to that most wonderful of ornitholo- 

 gical mysteries — seasonal migration, little as even now we 

 understand it. Undeniably resident as a species in our own 

 countr}^ close scrutiny will reveal the fact that its num- 

 bers are subject to very considerable variation according to 

 the time of year. Towards the end of summer the old birds 

 for the most part withdraw from ordinary observation, betak- 

 ing themselves to the shelter and comparative privacy v/hicli 

 the luxuriant foliage of that season aflbrds them, while food 

 being then plentiful and obtained with little exertion, these 

 conditions favour their successfully undergoing the annual 

 moult — one of the severest strains to which bird-life is ex- 

 posed. That process completed, they return towards autumn 

 to their familiar haunts, which in the meantime have been 

 occupied by their progeny, the young of the preceding spring. 

 The old birds, then in renewed vigour, proceed to engage the 

 young, and each lawn and thicket becomes a battle-field ; but 

 so far from the vulgar belief of the latter destroying the 

 former being well founded, the young are almost invariably 

 worsted and possession remains with the victorious parents. 

 What becomes of the defeated is not exactly known, but it 

 may be plausibly suggested that, driven away from the place 

 of their birth, they join the numerous bands of allied species 

 which are then seeking more southern regions (for it is un- 

 questionable that in most parts of the Continent the Eed- 

 breast is a bird-of-passage, commoner in the fall of the year 

 than at other times), and help to swell the stream of emi- 

 grants then setting steadily towards warmer climes. For 

 such as survive the mishaps of the long voyage, which pos- 

 sibly has for its goal some oasis in an African desert, there 

 is no cessation of peril, since the winter- quarters of the 

 wanderers are beset by hosts of birds-of-prey both small 

 and great, so that, wanting in experience and strength to 

 escape, few are left to return when the northward move- 

 ment begins in the following spring. But the migratory 



