236 NATURAL HISTORY 



subject of migration. See Amccnitates Academicce, vol. iv. 

 p. 565 *. 



Birds may be so circumstanced as to be obliged to 

 migrate in one country and not in another: but the 

 Grallce (which procure their food from marshes and 

 boggy grounds) must in winter forsake the more nor- 

 therly parts of Europe, or perish for want of food. 



I am glad you are making inquiries from Linnaeus 

 concerning the woodcock : it is expected of him that he 

 should be able to account for the motions and manner 

 of life of the animals of his own Fauna. 



Faunists, as you observe, are too apt to acquiesce in 

 bare descriptions, and a few synonyms: the reason is 

 plain : because all that may be done at home in a man's 

 study; but the investigation of the life and conversation 

 of animals is a concern of much more trouble and diffi- 

 culty, and is not to be attained but by the active and 

 inquisitive, and by those that reside much in the 

 country. 



Foreign systematics are, I observe, much too vague 

 in their specific differences ; which are almost univer- 

 sally constituted by one or two particular marks, the 

 rest of the description running in general terms. But 

 our countryman, the excellent Mr. Ray, is the only de- 

 scriber that conveys some precise idea in every term or 

 word, maintaining his superiority over his followers and 

 imitators in spite of the advantages of fresh discoveries 

 and modern information. 



At this distance of years it is not in my power to re- 

 collect at what periods woodcocks used to be sluggish 

 or alert when I was a sportsman : but, upon my men- 

 tioning this circumstance to a friend, he thinks he has 

 observed them to be remarkably listless against snowy 



1 Turnstones leave our eastern coast the last week in May, and are 

 back again with their young by the first week in August. Mr. Hewitson 

 found them breeding in Norway. Dr. Fleming says that they are sta- 

 tionary in Zetland. W. Y. 



