MIGRATION OF BIRDS. Ill 



food of which is solely insects, could assuredly find a 

 sufficient supply of such diet during the summer months, 

 in the woods and thickets of those mild regions, where 

 they passed the season of winter, and every bank and 

 unfrequented wild would furnish a secure asylum for 

 them and their offspring during the period of incubation. 

 The passage to our shores is a long and dangerous one, 

 and some imperative motive for it must exist ; and, 

 until facts manifest the reason, we may perhaps, without 

 injury to the cause of research, conjecture for what ob- 

 ject these perilous transits are made. We know that 

 all young creatures require particularly compounded 

 nutriment during their infant state ; and nature, as far 

 as we are acquainted with it, has made in every instance 

 provision for a supply of fitting aliment. In many in- 

 stances, where the removal of station could not be con- 

 veniently accomplished, instinct has been given the 

 parent to provide the fitting aliment for its new-born 

 young. Thus insects, in some cases, store their cells 

 with food ready for the animation of their progeny ; in 

 others, place their eggs in such situations, as will afford 

 it when they are hatched. The mammalia, at least the 

 quadrupeds belonging to this class, which could least 

 conveniently move their station, have supplies given 

 them of a milky secretion for this purpose. Birds have 

 nothing of this nature, and make no provision for their 

 young ; but they of all creatures, except fishes, can 

 seek what may be required in distant stations with most 

 facility. A sufficiency of food for the adult parent may 

 be found in every climate, yet the aliment necessary 

 for its offspring may not. Countries and even counties 

 produce insects that differ, if not in species, at least in 

 numbers ; and many young birds we cannot succeed in 

 rearing, or do it very partially, by reason of our igno- 

 rance of the requisite food. Every one, who has made 

 the attempt, well knows the various expedients he has 

 resorted to, of boiled meats, bruised seeds, hard eggs, 

 boiled rice, and twenty other substances, that nature 

 never presents, in order to find a diet that will nourish 

 them ; but Mr. Montague's failure in being able to 



