1 8 love's meinie. 



about migration itself? You are broadly told 

 that a bird travels, and how wonderful it is 

 that it finds its way; but you are scarcely 

 ever told, or led to think, what it really 

 travels for — whether for food, for warmth, or 

 for seclusion — and how the travelling is con- 

 nected with its fixed home. Birds have not 

 their town and country houses, — their villas 

 in Italy, and shooting boxes in Scotland. 

 The country in which they build their nests 

 is their proper home, — the country, that is to 

 say, in which they pass the spring and sum- 

 mer. Then they go south in the winter, for 

 food and warmth ; but in what lines, and by 

 what stages ? The general definition of a 

 migrant in this hemisphere is a bird that goes 

 north to build its nest, and south for the 

 winter ; but, then, the one essential point to 

 know about it is the breadth and latitude of 

 the zone it properly inhabits, — that is to say, 

 in which it builds its nest ; next, its habits 

 of life, and extent and line of southing in the 

 winter ; and finally, its manner of travelling. 



17. Now, here is this entirely familiar bird, 

 the robin. Quite the first thing that strikes 

 me about it, looking at it as a painter, is the 



