158 CHAFFINCHES. 



VIII. 



THE birds that I took for aberdavines were 

 reed-sparrows (passeres torquati.) 



There are, doubtless, many home internal 

 migrations within this kingdom that want to be 

 better understood; witness those vast flocks of 

 hen chaffinches that appear with us in the winter 

 without hardly any cocks among them. Now, 

 was there a due proportion of each sex, it would 

 seem very improbable that any one district should 

 produce such numbers of these little birds, and 

 much more when only one half of the species 

 appears ; therefore we may conclude, that the 

 fringillce ccelebes, for some good purposes, have a 

 peculiar migration of their own, in which the sexes 

 part. Nor should it seem so wonderful that the 

 intercourse of sexes in this species of birds should 

 be interrupted in winter ; since in many animals, 

 and particularly in bucks and does, the sexes 

 herd separately, except at the season when 

 commerce is necessary for the continuance of the 

 breed. For this matter of the chaffinches, see 

 Fauna Suecica, p. 85, and Sy sterna Nature, p. 318. 

 I see every winter vast flights of hen chaffinches, 

 but none of cocks. 



Your method of accounting for the periodical 

 motions of the British singing birds, or birds of 

 flight, is a very probable one, since the matter of 

 food is a great regulator of the actions and proceed- 

 ings of the brute creation : there is but one that can 

 be set in competition with it, and that is love. 

 But I cannot quite acquiesce with you in one 

 circumstance, when you advance that " When 

 they have thus feasted, they again separate into 

 small parties of five or six, and get the best fare 



