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MIGRATION OF BIRDS IN BERWICKSHIRE. 



Birds, joyous birds of the wandering wing! 

 Whence is it ye come with the flowers of spring 1 ? 



HEMANS. 



. . . . Wild birds that change 

 Their season in the night, and wail their way 

 From cloud to cloud. 



TENNYSON. 



FOR many years past the Migration of Birds has attracted 

 the attention of ornithologists, and although much informa- 

 tion has been collected regarding it since the days of Gilbert 

 White, whose delightful work on the Natural History of 

 Selborne is a perennial source of pleasure to all lovers of 

 Nature, yet much has still to be obtained before the subject 

 can be fully elucidated, and removed from the region of 

 conjecture. 



We find that with the approach of the cold weather in 

 autumn certain species of birds, such as the Swallow, leave 

 the county for southern climes, whilst somewhat later in the 

 same season, others, like the Wild Goose, come here from 

 northern regions and take up their abode with us for the 

 winter. With the return of the genial weather in spring 

 the former appear here again in their usual haunts, whilst 

 the latter fly away to the north to spend the summer in 

 Lapland or Siberia. These are true migrants, as distin- 

 guished from birds of passage, such as the Dotterel, which 

 only visits the county for a short time in spring on its 

 way northwards to its nesting grounds, and again in autumn 

 on its way southwards to its winter quarters. In addition 

 to the true migrants and this bird of passage, we have 

 partial migrants like the Thrush and the Eedbreast, the 

 majority of which pass southwards in winter and return 



