318 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. 



derisis) on their aerial voyage from the frozen regions of 

 Boothia Felix to the " Father of Waters/' Chesapeake Bay. 

 I have observed several other flocks lately, all pursuing the 

 same southerly course. 



F. What a mysterious instinct is that which impels 

 these and similar birds to seek, at a certain season, over thou- 

 sands of intervening miles, such apparently inhospitable 

 climes, to remain but a few weeks, then to retrace the same 

 journey I And this, year after year, with such undeviating 

 uniformity, " knowing the times and the seasons." What 

 is the motive of so toilsome a pilgrimage ? Is it to pro- 

 cure food ? one should suppose that the sedges and grasses 



A A o o 



of our coasts, our marshes, our rivers, the shell-fish of our 

 beaches, and the worms of our meads, would afford these 

 birds fully as abundant and as suitable food as the regions 

 of Hudson's Bay. Do they seek those impenetrable recesses 

 for the sake of bringing up their young in security, their 

 jealousy being of so ultra a character, that the very pos- 

 sibility of intrusion is intolerable ? Or is their blood of so 

 high and heated a nature, that they cannot bear the tem- 

 perature of our summers ? What do we know, with all the 

 researches of modern science, concerning the nature or causes 

 of migration in general ? It is a subject yet enveloped in 

 much darkness, which we are not able to penetrate. " Doth 

 the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings towards 



the south ? " 



Here is a curious specimen of vegetation ; this was a sheaf 

 of timothy grass, which was reaped with others about a 

 month ago, to be threshed for grass seed, but this one being 

 overlooked has lain upon the ground ever since. The warm 

 rains of the past month have caused the seed to germinate ; 

 and now, see what a host of little straight green sprouts 

 arise from every stalk, and what a matted mass of fibrous 

 roots is the underside, which has lain on the earth ! 



