84 MTGRA TION AND FLIGHT. 



"these birds took their place in the larders of the nobility as 

 delicacies with other game, from which we may infer that 

 they were at that time as rare in Norfolk as they are still in 

 some parts of Russia, owing probably to the same cause, viz., 

 the limited state of tillage and growth of corn.* 



The Rice-Buntings, natives of Cuba, after the planting of 

 rice in the Carolinas, annually quit the island in myriads, and 

 flying over wide seas, land to partake of a harvest introduced 



Male Rice-Bunting. Female Rice-Bunting. 



there from distant India. It is, however, only the female 

 Rice-bird that migrates ; for of the numbers visiting Carolina 

 it is said not a single male is ever found. 



The foregoing instances, while they assure us (if assurance 

 was necessary) that birds at wonted times change their habi- 

 tations, still add to, rather than remove, the difficulties as to 

 the real causes. But if of these we must for the present 

 remain in ignorance, we have enough left in the actual facts 

 of migration to call forth all our wonder, in considering the 

 regularity, order, and discipline with which these unac- 

 countable journeys are conducted, and the unknown compass 

 placed within the bosoms of these airy travellers, enabling 

 them to go, and return from, points thousands of miles apart, 



* See Household and Privy-purse Accounts of the L'Estranges of 

 Hunstanton, communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by Daniel 

 Gurney, Esq., F.S.A. 



