118 NATURAL HISTORY SKETCHES. 



osiers that fringe its banks, is hailed with equal delight 

 both by the contemplative angler and more boisterous 

 huntsman ; for each hails it as a joyful omen that his 

 season has again come round. 



All this is much more marked at home than in a 

 foreign land, where the birds are strangers to us, with 

 whose habits we have hardly had time to become ac- 

 quainted ; but the same remarks will apply with equal 

 accuracy both to England and Australia. It is true that 

 in this latter country, these migrations being more par- 

 tial, are far less observed, and are perhaps instigated in 

 some respects by different causes ; but the two principal 

 causes are doubtless the same here as elsewhere : search 

 after food, and suitable localities for the purposes of 

 breeding. The advent and departure of the quail, the 

 pigeon, the snipe, and the other regular summer migrants, 

 are conducted with the greatest regularity, and the partial 

 migrations of the large flocks of parrots, wattle-birds, 

 and others, which are constantly taking place, are no 

 doubt regulated by the state of the blossoms and seeds 

 upon which they feed. The more attention that we pay 

 to this subject, the more regular shall we find these 

 migrations, and many a useful lesson, both in the botany 

 as well as the rural economy of this land, might be 

 learned by observing the habits and noting the migra- 

 tions of the birds to and from each particular district. 



Man's constant companions in every out-door occupa- 

 tion, cheering him with their plumage or their songs, 

 affording him often a principal means of subsistence, it 



