1S37] 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



fi71 



Indian summer seemed to invite all the birds that 

 had linixered on their passage, to sports aiul 

 pastirni's. 



The! iniixmtion of birds is one of tliose extranr- 

 diiiary pro\•i^:iolls ol' nature, dcpondinn; lor its ac- 

 conipli.-iiinent on wliat we, lor want ol" a lietter 

 name, are acciistuined to call instinct; but wliich 

 in m;uiy cases seems more like one direet nnd lui- 

 errmg emanation ll-om tiie Deity, than the boasted 

 reason oCman. ''When certain species of birds," 

 savsihe Rev. Mr. Bachman, "at their first season 

 of lireedinir, heinix without experience, huild ail 

 their ne.sis alil<e, both in Corm and materials, this 

 may be called the result of instinct. On the other 

 hand, when man <ruards against danger, ormalces 

 provision lor the wants of lilt;, or seeks re'ief from 

 diseases, by the application of medicines, he acts 

 from reason, because he is instrut^ted by the expe- 

 rience of the past. When birds at certain seasons 

 of the year, chanije the climate, in anticipation of 

 heat or cold, they act from instinct, because, to 

 many of them it is their first mirrration; and as they 

 often miijrate singly and not in flocks, in such cases 

 no experience can aid them. On the other hand 

 when man makes provision for the chanjjes of 

 season and climate, he acts from reason, and is in- 

 structed ti'ora his own experience or the experience 

 of others." 



A very larire proportion of birds miffrate, food 

 or clinuue being usually the exciting causes, and 

 this is particularly true of such as live or breed in 

 northern latitudes. There are very few that are 

 able to resist the cold and snows of our lalitiule, 

 though birds have blood of a high temperature 

 compared with man. Those that remain with us 

 are mostly carnivorous, living on such animals as 

 chance or the hunter may throw in their way; 

 such as owls, hawks, ravens, the Canada jay, and 

 the crow. Some retnam that live on the buds of 

 trees, as the partridge or grouse, the crossbills, and 

 the grosbeaks; and a few of the smaller birds gain 

 a precarious subsistence fi-om the seeds scattered 

 in barnyards, and from weeds rising through the 

 snow. Two or three species of sparrow, familiar- 

 iy denominated snow-birds, are of this class. Rut 

 all the flycatchers, and warblers, those beautiful 

 tenants of our groves and orchards, that feed on 

 worms and insects; all the difl>^rent fimilies of the 

 swallow, the night hawks, and whippoor-wiil, the 

 tanager, and the oriole, early obey the wondt^rfid 

 instinct of nature, and seek in more Hivored climes 

 the food denied them in this. They are followed 

 by the divers, the snipes, wildgoose, ducks, the 

 sand birds, in short all that freipjent our waters 

 and subsist on food from our fresh water po'ids 

 and rivers. 



The habits of migratory birds were but imper- 

 fectly understood, until it was found that many 

 kinds travelled mostly by night; and experiments 

 made on the rapidity with whiidi birds fly, and the 

 time they are able to sustain themselves on the 

 wing, have dispelled many of the errors which 

 were formerly entertained on this subject. The 

 wild pigeon of our forests, flies at the rate of a mile 

 in a minute and a half, or forty miles in an hour, 

 and his flight is con'inued by night as well as by 

 day. This woalil enable him to pass from Geor- 

 gia to our latitude in a few hours, and at a single 

 flight; and hence the fact that geese, ducks, and 

 pigeons have been taken in the northern .states 

 with undigested rice in their crops, which must 



have been gathered in the rice fields of the south. 



The swallow is able to fly twelve or filteen hun- 

 dred miles in twenty-f()ur hours, and is thus ena- 

 l)!eil to reach his winter resi(lence in Cuba or 

 South America with ease. To avoid inconve- 

 nience during their night flights, birds fly much 

 higher by night than by day; and almost every 

 one has heard the hoarse notes of the night heron, 

 or the harsh carl-wheel crake of the snipe, when 

 high in the air: they were on their night migration. 

 The great hooping crane can be occasionally 

 heard during the day, as he passes without paus- 

 ing over mountain and river, but at such a height 

 as to he wholly invisible. We witnessed a cu- 

 rious illustration of the height at which the Cana- 

 da goose sometimes flies, a year or two since. 

 The night had been cold, with squalls. The morn- 

 ing was fair, with an occasional fleecy cloud at 

 great height. About 9 o'clock the cry of wild 

 geese was distinctly heard, but it was a longtime 

 before the}^ could be seen, as against the blue sky 

 they were invisible; at length a glimpse of them 

 was caught against a white cloud like a row of 

 small specks, and after they had passed through 

 it, they were again seen with a glass. They had 

 evidentlj' lost their course during the li'ght, and 

 were seemingly unable to regain it, ast >ey con- 

 tinued wlieeling round thirough and ovei I ne clouds 

 for nearly a quarter of an hour. 



One of the most astonishing as well as pleasing 

 facts connected with the migration of birds is the 

 regularity with which they revisit their former 

 breeding places, after an absence of several 

 months, and a flight of thousands of miles. Birds 

 marked so as to be known, have been observed to 

 return to the same nest for many successive years, 

 as the martin, swallow, bluebird, and wren. A 

 phebe bird has been known to occupy the same 

 arch of a bridge or the same cavern by the river 

 for years: and it is very rarely indeed that the 

 rights of the migratory birds are intruded upon, or 

 they are obliged to expel usurpers li-om their for- 

 mer habitations. That welcome bird, the cliflf 

 swallow, so lately domesticated in the United 

 States, tlie common barn swallow, and the chim- 

 ney swallow, are found to return to their cluster of 

 mild huilt nests, the barn, or the chimney they oc- 

 cupied the year before, with as much regularity, 

 and certainty almost, as the seasons. The little 

 song sparrow opens its song on the same hedge 

 and builds m the same thicket of grass and leaves; 

 and the meadow lark, and bobolink, wander as 

 little as possible from their former breeding places. 

 We greet them on their return, as old fi-iencis, and 

 listen to songs that awake the remembrance of by- 

 gone years, and think as we hear their warbling 

 —"what would this world be, without songs and 

 flowers." 



Closer and more extended observation has ex- 

 ploded the notion that some kinds of birds hyber- 

 nate, or spend the winter, without migrating, in a 

 torpid stale. This was supfiosed to be Mie case 

 with the rail or soree of Virginia and the barn and 

 chimney swa'lows. The rail appears early in 

 August in great numbers on the reedy shores of 

 the southern Atlantic bays and rivers, and remains 

 uniil October, when it disappears suddenly and 

 completely, not an individual remaining where 

 the day before they might be counted by thous- 

 ands; and it was supposed they took reliige in the 

 mud of the rivers. It is now ascertained they al- 



