INSTINCT OF SOME SUPERIOR ANIMALS. 195 



extraordinary fact of the power of communica- 

 tion existing amongst them. 



Quails have a strong migratory instinct, and 

 so regular is their arrival in the island of Malta, 

 ihat the day of their coming is noticed in the 

 published calendar of the island, as the change 

 of the moon is in ours. A great flight of storks 

 also takes place annually in the Mediterranean, 

 about the same period of the year; and I was 

 assured by the captain of a ship, who was en- 

 gaged in making surveys on the coast, that 

 those young birds which were incapable of 

 performing so long a flight during the migratory 

 impulse, were conveyed on the backs of their 

 parents to far -distant places, some of them 

 making their way into Persia. 



One of the most curious instances of migration 

 is in the case of the heron. Heronries are not 

 very common in England, and certainly there 

 are not any within some miles of Richmond 

 Park, in Surrey. Yet year after year (for I 

 reside in the neighbourhood) I have seen from 

 fifty to sixty herons assembled on a large open 

 space in that Park, not moving about or seeking 

 for food, but appearing as if they had met 

 together to consult on some important subject. 



