OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



BIRDS IN GENERAL. 



IN severe weather, fieldfares, red-wings, sky-larks, and tit- 

 larks, resort to watered meadows for food ; the latter wades 

 up to its belly in pursuit of the pupae of insects, and runs 

 along upon the floating grass and weeds. Many gnats are on 

 the snow near the water, these support the birds in part. 



Birds are much influenced in their choice of food by colour, 

 for though white currants are a much sweeter fruit than red, 

 yet they seldom touch the former till they have devoured every 

 bunch of the latter. 



Red-starts, fly-catchers, and black-caps, arrive early in 

 April. If these little delicate beings are birds of passage (as 

 we have reason to suppose they are, because they are never 

 seen in winter) how could they, feeble as they seem, bear up 

 against such storms of snow and rain, and make their way 

 through such meteorous turbulences, as one should suppose 

 would embarrass and retard the most hardy and resolute of the 

 winged nation? Yet they keep their appointed times and 

 seasons ; and in spite of frosts and winds return to their sta- 

 tions periodically, as if they had met with nothing to obstruct 

 them. The withdrawing and appearance of the short winged 

 summer birds is a very puzzling circumstance in natural 

 history I 



When the boys bring me wasps' nests, my bantam fowls 

 fare deliciously, and when the combs are pulled to pieces, de- 



