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habits, originally awakened by tlic need of a distant search for food. Mr. A. R. 

 Wallace's view, however, holds that migration is one of the moans of getting rid of 

 the enormous surplus of bird population, as only a small number, he thinks, sur- 

 vives out of the vast crowds which seek to pass from one region to another. What 

 this instinct is in itself is as fruitless a question as similar enquiries in human 

 Iisj'chology. The more a lover of birds attempts to understand the motives which 

 bids them change their skies or pass from the ken of man to the comparative 

 obscurity of the woods, the more is he foiled. But the attempt to penetrate this great 

 .secret of bird life will assuredly fill him with ever increasing wonder as he reflects 

 on the resolution shown by even the feeblest birds in carrying out this law of their 

 being — how such feathered atoms as the Golden-crested Wren brave the rough nights 

 and severe weather of the North Sea in October to reach our shores ; how the 

 Sand-martins, the .smallest of the British Swallows, do not scruple to commit their 

 delicate forms at the same time to wastes of sea and leagues of land, in order to 

 arrive at their winter homes. These considerations, I say, may well fill us with 

 thankful wonder at the marvellous workmanship and infinite contrivances of the 

 Creator ; " great things doeth He, which we cannot comprehend " (Job x.xxvii., v.) 



