A GENERAL VIEW 13 



If they afterwards meet, it is as rivals ; old acquain- 

 tance and relationship are forgotten ; and even deadly 

 battle may ensue. 



On two or three other points in his general references Change of 

 to bird-phenomena Thomson has something to say JfJJjJfJ 

 that is well worth reading. One is their annual mi- ^y^ y 



200 grations, in spring and again in autumn ; another is 

 their lesser movements, while resident, considered as 

 omens of imminent weather. As tenants of the sky 

 (or { commoners of air ', as Burns has called them) 

 birds furnish the best prognostic of the weather that 

 we can have. They, chiefly, 'speak its changes', 

 forewarning us by their abnormal behaviour of what 

 is coming, if we would but look, listen, and study 

 their monitory signals. This one wheels from the 

 deep and screams along the land ; that other shrieks 



210 and soars ; a third cleaves the flaky clouds with 

 wildly circling wing: these are cormorants, herons, 

 and seagulls, shaken from their usual routine by an 

 apprehension of approaching storm. Country children 

 know what weather to expect when they see the white 

 wings of straggling seamews flashing far inland from 

 their native haunts : they pause in their play to shout 

 to them the traditional rhyme 



Sea-mew, sea-mew, sink in the sand ; 



It 's never good weather when you 're upon land ! 



220 Even rooks and owls are as reliable as a barometer, 

 once you have learned to read them. 



Of the larger movements of birds, it is the autumn The 

 migration, as being the more noticeable the more 

 simultaneous and picturesque that wins Thomson's 

 attention. He watches their gatherings, their de- 



