OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



BIRDS IN GENERAL. 



IN severe weather, fieldfares, redwings, 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 

 stations 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. 



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

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

 devour the young wasps in their maggot state with the highest 



