86 MIGRATION AND FLIGHT. 



of the nobility as delicacies with other game, from which we 

 may infer that they were at that time as rare in Norfolk as 

 they still are in some parts of Russia, owing probably to the 

 same cause, viz., the limited state of tillage and growth of 

 corn.* 



The Rice-Buntings, natives of Cuba, after the planting of 

 rice in the Carolinas, annually quit the island in myriads, and 

 flying over wide seas, land, to partake of a harvest introduced 

 there from distant India. It is, however, only the female 

 Ricebird that migrates ; for of the numbers visiting Carolina, 

 it is said not a single male is ever found. 



The foregoing instances, while they assure us (if assurance 

 was necessary) that birds at wonted times change their habi- 

 tations, still add to, rather than remove, the difficulties as to 

 the real causes. But if of these we must for the present 

 remain in ignorance, we have enough left in the actual facts 

 of migration to call forth all our wonder, in considering 

 the regularity, order, and discipline with which these unac- 

 countable journeys are conducted, and the unknown compass 

 placed within the bosoms of these airy travellers, enabling 

 them to go, and return from, points thousands of miles apart, 

 with as much certainty as the sailor steers his ship across the 

 wide ocean by his skill in navigation, and that mysterious 

 needle ever pointing to the north. Neither is this instinct 

 confined to birds ; it has been observed in turtles, which cross 

 the ocean from the Bay of Honduras to the Cayman Isles, 

 near Jamaica, a distance of 450 miles, without the aid of 

 chart or compass, and with an accuracy superior to human 

 skill ; for it is affirmed, that vessels which have lost their 

 reckoning in hazy weather, have steered entirely by the noise 

 of the turtles in swimming. The object of their voyage, as 

 in the case of birds, is for the purpose of laying their eggs on 

 a spot peculiarly favourable. 



It is, indeed, this instinctive power and stimulus which is 

 the real point to excite our astonishment in the migration of 



* See Household and Privy-purse Accounts of the L'Estranges of 

 Hunstanton, communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by Daniel 

 Gurney, Esq., F.S.A. 



