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Migration. 
T is the pride of Englishmen that their country is open to all 
the world, that every one, be he aking flying from Revolution 
or an exile proscribed for his political opinions, finds rest and 
safety here, so long as he conforms to our laws, and lives peace- 
ably within the pale of our institutions. "We welcome all these, 
and extend to them the hand of fellowship and hospitality—and 
this although they come here merely for peace and security and 
not from sympathy with us as a people, or from love or attach- 
ment to our national character and constitution. They feel this 
is not their home, and they live and perhaps die amongst us as 
mere sojourners in a foreign land. On the other hand, if there 
be an amnesty for political offenders, or a new, era of politics in 
their own unhappy country, back they stream, sometimes without 
a tear of regret at leaving us, without a thought of the protection 
they have received, and often, sad to say, with prejudices only 
confirmed by the very benefits which should have dissipated them. 
How different it is with those humbler beings that visit the 
shores of England with the regularity and precision of the seasons, 
and impelled only by the mysterious workings of an infallible 
instinct. The migration of birds is indeed a wonderful theme for 
study and reflection. Our feathered friends come among us, the 
heralds of spring, or harbingers of winter, exemplifying the 
beautiful working of Nature’s laws, and the harmony and regu- 
larity subsisting in all the works of God. Our summer visitors 
stay their allotted time, make England their home, build their 
nests, rear their young, cheer us with their joyous song, and 
then, with a silent but thankful farewell, take their family back 
to their winter quarters with the promise, certain of fulfilment, to 
come back with the bright sunshine of the following year. And 
yet the migration of birds is with many a subject of little moment, 
ard our feathered friends come and go unnoticed and unknown. 
This is not as it should be, for the more we study these things, 
