110 HABITS AXD MIGRATION. 



served that they passed through the air (whether 

 on their journey or not, or whether in flocks or 

 not, he does not say) in long undulations. 



We suspect that migration is performed by 

 individuals united by a common impulse into 

 small flocks, which wing their way northwards, 

 or southwards, by stages, according to the 

 season. 



"We extract the following passage from an 

 able article in the Penny Cyclopaedia, relying on 

 the correctness of references to works not easily 

 accessible, and not, in general, of great intrinsic 

 value : " It is not to be wondered at that fable 

 should have its share in accounting for the origin 

 and describing the habits of these diminutive 

 aerial beings. Thus, while the more sober be- 

 lieved that they were hatched from eggs, like 

 other birds, others fancied that they were trans- 

 formed from flies, some going so far as to de- 

 clare that they had been seen in the half- fly 

 half-bird state." Truly the naked blind dusky 

 specimens of young nestlings in Mr. Grould's 

 collection look almost as like flies as birds. To 

 proceed. " Then, again, they w r ere supposed to 

 live no longer than the flowers which afforded 

 them food ; and, when those flowers faded, they 

 were believed to fix themselves by the bill to 

 some pine or other tree, and there remain 

 during the dreary months till the descending 

 rains brought back the spring, when they re- 

 vived again to undergo the same alternation of 



