THE MIGRATION OF INLAND BIRDS. 117 



and in the quiet woodlands several retiring grosbeaks 

 were seen until biting north winds drove them from their 

 summer haunts. The bobolinks, in spite of the persecu- 

 tion they suffer from sportsmen, hold to their reedy 

 haunts, in scattering pairs, often until the first fall of 

 snow, and, this same bird being occasionally seen very 

 early in the spring, may possibly remain during the win- 

 ter, but if so, it is very rarely. A few red- winged black- 

 birds, we know, do withstand our winters, and seem to 

 find food somewhere and somehow, even when the ther- 

 mometer is at zero. 



The difference between the insect-eating and the seed- 

 eating birds, in the more prolonged stay of the latter, 

 is, I think, easily explained. In the spring, when birds 

 journey north, there is an object ever in view, whilst in 

 the autumn, their sole care is to be at home in time, not 

 so much to escape the coming cold, as to avoid being 

 pinched by hunger. 



We have seen that the first frost, though it affects vege- 

 tation but little, does materially decrease insect life ; the 

 swallows, as a rule, even anticipate it, and gathering in 

 immense flocks they wing their way southward before it 

 comes. From this, we can clearly see that the weather 

 greatly influences, indeed governs, the migratory move- 

 ments in autumn of the insect-eaters. It bids them de- 

 part, and, in general, they heed the bidding ; but long after 

 this, while there are yet berries, seeds, and fruits to be 

 obtained, the migratory vegetarians linger by the way, in 

 varying but considerable numbers. 



Let us now glance at the abundant and well-known 

 purple grakle or crow-blackbird. The numbers of this, 

 with us, partly migratory species which remain through- 

 out the winter, as compared with those which are here 

 during the spring and summer months, are about as ten to 



