544 



B O M B Y C I L L A. 



active part of the bud requires the protection of a 

 more thick and close hybernaculuin, and because the 

 more rapid action which these buds make when the 

 summer calls them at once into action, with the 

 intervention of little that can be considered as spring, 

 demands a greater store of prepared materials. Thus 

 there is upon these plants two crops of food for the 

 tree birds one of the hybernating bud on the early 

 shrub ; and the other of the seed when it is ripe, or 

 of the pulp of the berry in other cases. The ever- 

 greens, the pines for instance, form no exception to 

 this ; for though they retain their leaves during the 

 winter, their buds are as well prepared, and as closely 

 moulded up as those of the trees, or rather the shrubs 

 (for there are few deciduous plants which deserve 

 the name of trees in those latitudes) which are 

 denuded of their leaves. 



This peculiarity of the polar forests forms so impor- 

 tant an auxiliary in the history of those birds which 

 resort thither, and the wax-wing of the Eastern con- 

 tinent is in its very irregular wanderings so inti- 

 mately connected with the seasonal character of those 

 forests, that this seems to be the fittest opportunity 

 for offering one or two short remarks on them ; and 

 this is the more necessary that the habits of these 

 birds have never been very satisfactorily explained, 

 and this apparently for no other reason than that the 

 seasonal characters of those places to which they re- 

 tire when they quit the more cultivated places, have 

 not been considered along with them. This indeed 

 has been the grand fault or imperfection of the study 

 of nature in all its kingdoms and departments : one 

 has attended to the animal kingdom, or even to one 

 department of that kingdom; another has attended 

 only to the vegetables; and a third has confined his 

 observations and his investigations to the climate and 

 the seasons; but no one has brought them together, 

 and stated the manner in which it should be done 

 for the proper and satisfactory understanding of any 

 one of them, the general analogies which connect the 

 three, or the general law which they all obey. They 

 have, as hinted, " sent the bird to Siberia," and so 

 got rid of any further trouble with it, as is the object 

 of sending to Siberia in other cases. But they have 

 not told us what the bird does in Siberia, or what 

 entices it there ; for it is enticed, not forced, and goes 

 there in virtue of the ukase of nature, and not of any 

 human autocrat. Now, why it should go to Siberia 

 is the grand point of the case, the one upon which 

 information is especially desirable, because it is in 

 this that we discover the true character of the bird ; 

 and as we need the character of Siberia, in order to 

 determine that, we make out the entire case ; whereas 

 if we content ourselves with merely stating that the 

 bird goes there, we have only half a case, which we 

 are of course unable to use as an analogy, and so the 

 labour which we have taken is lost. 



It is easy to answer, generally, that the bird goes 

 to Siberia evidently because Siberia is the place best 

 suited to its habits ; but it is in the characters which 

 so suit it that the information lies. Now many of 

 the birds which summer in the arctic lands are insec- 

 tivorous, or otherwise animal feeders ; but the greater 

 number of these are ground birds, and many of them 

 have habits wholly or partially aquatic. Still, there 

 are others which are in these northern climates for a 

 larger portion of the year, which are chiefly vegeta- 

 ble in their feeding, and which are rather tree birds 

 than perching birds ; and they do not resort so regu- 



larly to the temperate latitudes as the others. The 

 crossbills belong to thia class, but tlhey (see BIKD and 

 CROSSBILL) have their bills of so peculiar a construc- 

 tion, that tlieir locality in these northern places can 

 be much more easily ascertained than those of such a 

 bird as the wax-wing. 



That the birds which resort to those regions in 

 the summer to consume the vast surplus of life 

 which is in and near the waters, should not seek 

 their way there till the summer is considerably 

 advanced, and that they should quit them again early 

 in the autumn, we can readily understand, as .the 

 frost is long in giving way and returns early ; and 

 during its continuance the more aquatic grallidae are 

 frozen out (much longer of course than the swimmers, 

 and longer still than the divers) and the insects perish 

 or disappear. We know the habits of those birds in 

 other countries, and thence we infer, with a reason- 

 able degree of certainty, what it is that entices them 

 to the north; but the wax-wings and other tribes analo- 

 gous in habit, and on that account probably much 

 more analogous in their general characters than their 

 present places in the system would lead us to believe 

 (for the place of the wax-wing in the system is far 

 from being natural or satisfactory), make their appear- 

 ance so irregularly in the southern parts of their 

 range, and, though they appear there in considerable 

 flocks, are so much fewer than they are in places 

 further to the north, and in the immediate vicinity of 

 those polar forests, or combinations of forest and 

 marsh, which have been mentioned, that they may 

 with much more propriety be said to be driven from 

 the polar countries than enticed to them. And thus, 

 before we can have any satisfactory knowledge of 

 their characters, we must know something about the 

 general economy of nature in those places. 



Now, as we have mentioned that all the ligneous 

 plants of those polar climates, whether they como 

 under the denomination of trees or of shrubs, and 

 whether they be deciduous or evergreen, form fat- 

 ter buds, or buds containing more farinaceous or 

 albuminous matter than those of milder climates. 

 Those which grow to trees are for the most part 

 evergreens, of the natund order Coiiifcree, and gene- 

 rally speaking of the pine family ; and their leaves 

 worn all the winter are of great importance to every 

 kind of life, on account of the shelter which they 

 afford. Indeed where these evergreens are not found 

 (for the deciduous plants are few in number, and they 

 appear only in low and sheltered places), the storms 

 when winter sets in, and the winds when it breaks, 

 are so violent that the surface is scourged to barren- 

 ness, and there is hardly food even for a bird ; so 

 that in those high latitudes the pines are, in an emi- 

 nent manner, the protectors of life and the preservers 

 of fertility such fertility as is to be found there. 



And it is well worthy of observation, how very 

 beautifully the coniferous trees of those regions are 

 adapted for abiding the frosts, and protecting all 

 those living creatures of which they are the shelter. 

 Their roots have not a tendency to penetrate very 

 deeply into the earth, for the soil is usually but thin 

 in those places ; but they extend to a very consider- 

 able distance laterally, so as to afford a broad, and 

 therefore a stable base ; and the bole of the tree 

 rises in one straight cone, gradually tapering to the 

 top, and thus increasing in strength as there is more 

 strain upon it from the action of the wind. The 

 branches too, have the same tapering and spiry out- 



