VIEJVS ON MIGRATION. 3 



as it may seem to naturalists nowadays, it was 

 gravely asserted, not a century and a half ago, 

 that the moon was supposed to be the destination 

 of migratory birds ! More than 300 years ago, 

 we hear of Belon watching with interest the great 

 flights of various Raptorial birds migrating to 

 and from their winter quarters. About a century 

 and a half ago, dear old Gilbert White, Thomas 

 Pennant, and Daines Barrington, the fathers of 

 British Field Natural History, were busily engaged 

 in watching the movements of migratory birds, 

 corresponding with each other on the subject, and 

 deeply engrossed with the fascinating pursuit 

 Scores of other observers of less eminence in the 

 scientific world, but none the less earnest in their 

 endeavours, were studying the periodical flights of 

 our commoner birds of passage. Continental field 

 naturalists before and contemporaneous with the 

 great Linnaeus, were similarly employed ; and 

 although their researches were not very systematic 

 or elaborate, we have ample evidence to show that 

 the subject was one of no ordinary interest to them. 

 From the distant days of Gilbert White, who in his 

 peaceful Hampshire home noted with loving care 

 the comings and the goings of our feathered hosts, 

 and never neglected an opportunity of pursuing his 

 search after migration knowledge, down to our 

 own, covers the greater part of 200 years, and 

 now as then the subject has lost no portion of 

 its charm. In spite, however, of the great pains 

 taken by these early observers, the philosophy of 



