THE SEASON WHY. 341 



' There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hafli not 

 seen." JOB xvui. 



entirely limited to the western hemisphere, where a particular species is some- 

 times bounded by the range of an island, while others are more extensively 

 spread, the Trochilus Jlammifrons, common to Lima, being observed by Captain 

 King upon the coast of the Straits of Magellan, in the depth of winter, sucking 

 the flowers of a large fuschia, then in bloom in the midst of a shower of snow. 

 Among the birds incapable of flight, which rival the quadrupeds in their size, 

 the intertropical countries of the globe have their distinct species, presenting 

 similar general features of organisation, as the ostrich of Africa and Arabia, 

 the cassowary of Java and Australia, and the touyou of Brazil. In the arctic 

 regions, we meet with species peculiar to them, the Strix laeponicus or Lapland 

 owl, and the eider-duck, an inhabitant of the shores, from whose nests the 

 eider-down is obtained. Several families of maritime birds are likewise limited 

 to particular oceanic localities. Approaching the fortieth parallel of latitude, 

 the albatross is seen flitting along the surface of the waves, and soon afterwards 

 the frigate and other tropical birds appear, which never wander far beyond the 

 torrid zone. It thus appears, that, notwithstanding the great locomotive 

 powers of birds, particular groups have had certain regions assigned to them 

 as their sphere of existence, which they are adapted to occupy, and to which 

 they adhere in the main, though it is easy to conceive of natural causes 

 occasionally constraining to a migration into new and even distant territories. 

 Captain Smyth informed Mr. Lyell, that when engaged in his survey of the 

 Mediterranean, he encountered a gale in the Gulf of Lyons, at the distance of 

 between twenty and thirty leagues from the coast of France, which bore along 

 many land-birds of various species, some of which alighted on the ship, while 

 others were thrown with violence against the sails. In this manner, many an 

 islet in the deep, after ages of solitude and silence, uninterrupted except by the 

 wave's wild dash, and the wind's fierce howl, may have received the song of 

 birds, forced by the tempest from their home, and compelled to seek a new one 

 under its direction. 



1330. There is no feature more remarkable in the economy of birds than the 

 periodical migrations, so systematically conducted, in which five-sixths of the 

 whole feathered population engage. In the case of North America, according to 

 an estimate by Dr. Richardson, the passenger-pigeons form themselves into vast 

 flocks for the journey, one of which has been calculated to include 2,230,000,000 

 individuals. We are familiar with the cuckoo as our visitor in spring, and with 

 the house-swallow as our guest through the summer, the latter usually depart- 

 ing in October to the warmer regions of the south, wintering in Africa, return- 

 ing again when a more genial season revives its insect food. By cutting off two 

 claws from the feet of a certain number of swallows, Dr. Jenner ascertained the 

 fact of the same individuals re-appearing in their old haunts in the following 

 year, and one was met with even after the lapse of seven years. The arctic birds 

 migrate farther south, when the seas, lakes, and rivers become covered with 

 unbroken sheets of ice ; the swans, geese, ducks, divers, and coots flying off in 

 regular phalanxes to regions where a less rigorous winter allows of access to the 

 means of life. Hence, soon after, we lose the swallows, we gain the snipes and 

 other waders, which have fled from the hard frozen north to our partially 

 frozen morasses, where their ordinary nutriment may still be obtained. The 

 equinoctial zone, where the seasonal change is that of humidity and drought 

 furnishes an example of the same phenomenon. As soon as the Orinoco is 

 swollen by the rains, overflows its banks, and inundates the country on eithe* 



